


Rest (Ghost AU)

by LuminaStarCrest



Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Ghosts, Bullying, Child Abandonment, Family Dynamics, Fluff, Gen, Ghosts, Mentions of Blood, Mentions of Murder, Mentions of kidnapping, Platonic relationships only - Freeform, Swearing, no beta we die like the people of l'manberg, talks about death
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-25
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:49:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 25
Words: 44,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27712975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LuminaStarCrest/pseuds/LuminaStarCrest
Summary: Inspired by @WolfyTheWitch on twitter, Ghosty Bois Inc.ALSO POSTED ON WATTPAD under the same name LuminaStarCrest.Ghosts have always been odd. They're souls with unfinished business, but for some reason, they just don't do what they need to. Why?Tommy just moved into a new town and made friends with an odd boy named Tubbo. They eventually find themselves staring at an abandoned house in the deepest parts of the forest. Who would have thought that after the encounter with that house, they would be learning the answer to that certain question.The story revolves around the Sleepy Bois Inc + Tubbo, but familiar characters will eventually appear.WARNINGS!!Cursing, Bullying, Talks about death/afterlife, Child Abandonment, Mentions of Kidnapping, Mentions of Blood, Mentions of Murder*Will update warnings as the story goes*
Relationships: Clay | Dream's Sister Drista & Toby Smith | Tubbo & TommyInnit, Clay | Dream's Sister Drista & TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF), Dave | Technoblade & Toby Smith | Tubbo, Dave | Technoblade & Toby Smith | Tubbo & Wilbur Soot & TommyInnit & Phil Watson, Dave | Technoblade & TommyInnit, Eret & Floris | Fundy, Eret & Phil Watson (Video Blogging RPF), Eret & Ranboo (Video Blogging RPF), Eret & Technoblade (Video Blogging RPF), Eret & Toby Smith | Tubbo, Eret & TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF), Floris | Fundy & Niki | Nihachu, Floris | Fundy & Ranboo, Floris | Fundy & Wilbur Soot, Niki | Nihachu & Ranboo, Niki | Nihachu & Wilbur Soot, No Romantic Relationship(s), Ranboo & Toby Smith | Tubbo, Ranboo & TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF), Toby Smith | Tubbo & Phil Watson, Toby Smith | Tubbo & TommyInnit, Toby Smith | Tubbo & Wilbur Soot, TommyInnit & Phil Watson (Video Blogging RPF), Wilbur Soot & Technoblade & TommyInnit, Wilbur Soot & Technoblade & TommyInnit & Phil Watson, Wilbur Soot & TommyInnit
Comments: 203
Kudos: 1265





	1. Prolouge

When Tommy Innit moved to a new town, he never did believe that it would be a good idea. For one, he hates changing schools. He hates the idea of being the new kid with no friends. He tries though.

On his first day at this new school, he tried making friends with this big, muscle-y guy who sat next to him in class. He knew the guy's name was Jeff Adams—how could he not, he was the talk of the school that day, being top player of the football team and all.

"Hey Big J!" Tommy greeted as the other boy sat down on the seat beside him.

Jeff's eyebrows immediately knitted together. "What did you call me?"

Panic sprung in Tommy's chest. "Jeff! I called you Jeff. How 'ya doin' mate."

The other teen smirked menacingly, "Nah, nah, I heard what you said. Calling me big eh?" he taunted.

"No! I- It- it was just a nickname dude!" Tommy defended.

"Nickname? Ha! Trying to get yourself close with the famous kids are ya? Not happen-" Jeff's face shifted into one that was thinking "-you know what? If you wanna be the talk of the school, I can arrange something."

Tommy did not like the sound of that. Not at all. "Look, I was just trying to strike up a conversation, and I have nothing against-"

"Meet me and my friends by the oak tree behind the school." Just when Tommy was going to protest, Jeff spoke again. "Let me just tell you that you're going to be the talk whether you show up or not."

Needless to say, Tommy wasn't gonna be known as a pussy for not showing up. That's exactly why he felt like shit right now. His whole body ached from being slammed to the ground and pinned down by another guy, while Jeff threw punches. Although, with Tommy being... well Tommy, he fought back.

 _Worth it._ He thought as he reminisced the black eye that Jeff had, as well as probably sprained wrist that all three of them had. What can he say, he's a persistent fighter. _Ah, shit. I'm bleeding._

"Here."

Tommy looked up and saw a brown haired boy who was his age offering him some tissues.

"Well, go on." He held the tissue pack closer to Tommy, who in turn grabbed a couple and held them to his nose in attempts to make it stop bleeding. "You should tilt your head forward," the boy advised.

Tommy did so, and soon enough the bleeding stopped. "Thanks."

"Yeah... it's fine. I heard you and Jeff get in a bit of a row earlier in the classroom, so I sort of followed you guys here."

Tommy stopped to think for a moment. He remembered this boy, he's in his class. The quiet kid sat in the front row. "Well, that's the problem with people with no fucking braincells. Can't even process a conversation."

The statement made the boy laugh. He got out a watter bottle and began pouring some of its contents on the scratches on Tommy's arms. "Yeah, he's all brawns and no brains. Likes bullying othes for fun."

Through out that whole thing, Tommy wasn't paying much attention. Instead, he was trying to remember this guy's name. "Is your name Tubbo?"

His question made the brunett stare at him for a quick second. "It's Toby, but close enough," he laughed, making Tommy let out his own loud laugh.

"You know what big man, you're not bad," Tommy said.

"Well, good to know since I _am_ trying to help clean your wounds here."

Who would have thought that what Tommy needed to make a friend—a best friend even—wasn't greeting them and talking using polite words, not a string of curses, but getting beat up and having a stranger help clean your wounds.


	2. Chapter 1

A month had passed since Tommy first moved into town. School was the same, still didn't like it very much, but according to life statistics, going to school would increase chances in getting a job. So, here he was, walking to school on an early Tuesday morning.

"Hey Tubbo," he greeted the brown haired boy who was sat on the steps of their house, waiting for him to pass so that they can walk the rest of the way together.

"Good morning!" Tubbo walked besides the blond, beaming.

Tommy groaned. "Have I ever told you how fucking loud you are, when it's so early."

"You have, but I have a reason this time!" Tommy raised an eyebrow, urging the boy to continue. "Before you came, a sawrm of bees flew by!"

Tommy let out a chuckle. "You and your bee obsession. Should've known."

"Alright, what's with you? You're acting like Garfield on a Monday."

"You see, that's the thing. It's Tuesday," Tommy began. "I mean what's up with Tuesdays? They shouldn't even exist. In fact, from now on I am removing Tuesdays."

This went on for a couple more minutes, until the two of them reached the school. The whole way there, Tubbo had one thing on his mind. _I shouldn't have asked. He'll be on about this for hours!_

"Good morning Mr. Bret." Tubbo waved to the teacher as they were passing by.

"And to you Mr. Underscore," he greeted back.

"Okay, first of all, why did he only greet you?" Tommy asked.

"Because I was the only one who g-"

"And second, isn't your last name Undersen?"

"Yeah, but there was this one time I was reading my assignment, a, uh, speech, out loud and accidentally read my name as Underscore."

Cue the loud laughter from Tommy. "So you're name's Tubbo Underscore now, innit?"

"Oh ha-ha." Tubbo shook his head. "At least mine's just a nickname. Your last name's actually "Innit". "

"My name's unique-"

"Unique? You mean-"

"Don't interrup me when-"

"No you-"

"Well if it isn't my two most favourite people."

The two 16 year olds stopped their friendly bickering and faced front. There stood Jeff, making them stop their tracks.

"The new kid, and the kid who can't read."

Tommy rolled his eyes. "I don't know if you know, but favourite means most, and if there's two, it can't be most."

"You really _can_ be stupid sometimes you know," Tubbo commented. He usually wouldn't talk back, but Tommy did so he was showing support.

"Why you little-" Jeff made the attempt to move closer to Tubbo, making Tommy instinctively step in front of him.

"What is going on here?" A teacher asked, her hands on her hips and a disapproving look on her face.

"Nothing. Just greeting a good morning," Jeff said, leaving, but not before giving them a dirty look.

Tommy relaxed once both the teacher and Jeff were out of sight. "Wanna steal his shit later?" Tubbo asked suddenly, making Tommy burst out laughing. "You know it big man!"

And steal his shit they did.

"Run Tubbo! He's gonna catch us!"

The two ran through the neighborhood, screaming their lungs off as Jeff and his merry band of two chased them down.

"Over here!" Tubbo yelled, gesturing for Tommy to follow him.

The two made a right turn straight into the trees of the forest surrounding the town. The change of terrain made Jeff and the other two slow down because of their sizes, while Tommy and Tubbo easily slipped through, making multiple twists and turns around the area.

"In the tree hollows," Tubbo instructed, diving into one of the spaces in the tree roots. Not having his own plan, Tommy obliged and crawled into a the hollow of a tree across from Tubbo.

From a distance, Tommy could hear Jeff complaining to his goons about how he couldn't see them and that they should head back.

"I think we're safe now!" Tommy crawled back out of the tre, staining the white portion of his shirt a bit.

"Oh, it is." Tubbo stood besides Tommy and placed his hands on his hips.

"So, which way is back?" They asked at the same time.

"Shit."

Lost as they were, they were thankful that there was still light out. They have been walking around for almost an hour, and the town was nowhere in sight.

"How the fuck did we manage to get this deep in this fucking forest?" Tommy groaned. "You sure your phone doesn't have battery left?"

"Yes. That is the third time you've asked that," Tubbo said. "Besides, even if it did, your phone says there's no signal. I doubt mine would have any."

"This sucks."

Tubbo sighed. He kept his eyes peeled for anything that looked like civilization. _Oh hey, that house's massive._

It took a while..."House!"

"Oh yeah. It is a house." Tommy squinted, trying to get a good look at the house when the sunlight was in his eyes. "You reckon the people there know the way out?"

"Worth a try."

The two made their way towards the house. The walk was oddly ominous, if they were being honest, but it was no use pointing it out seeing as they _are_ lost in a forest when the sun is about to set. Everything will feel ominous soon enough.

"Well this isn't helpful at all," Tommy said.

"No wonder it felt ominous. This place is completely abandoned." Tubbo touched the wooden rails of the porch, making the dust spread around and stick to his fingers.

"Think we should go inside?"

"Nu-uh." Tubbo shook his head, taking a step away from the house. "That looks haunted."

"Haunted?" Tommy laughed. "Like-what are you? Five? We're going in. What's a house gonna do to us anyway?"

Tubbo was practically dragged inside the house, the wooden floor planks creaking under their steps. Tommy turned the doorknob, opening the door.

"I did not think that that would've worked."

The condidtion inside the house was worse than the outside. No, not because it looked trashed, but it was way more dustier. So much that Tommy and Tubbo were coughing. Though, that didn't mean they would discredit how awesome the house would have looked if it wasn't abandoned.

The house was two stories high, had a wide—what they think is—living room.

"How long was this house abandoned you think?" Tubbo asked as he walked towards the stairs to explore the second floor of the house. "'cause the house doesn't look too bad really."

"Well," Tommy began, picking an object up from the coffee table. "This calendar stopped on September 27, 2017, so like... Three-ish years?" Tubbo only hummed in reply.

Tommy continued to explore the downstairs and discivered the kitchen. It wasnt what he had expected. It was big, big enough ti fit five people cooking at once he reckons.

He wondered why an amazing house like this would be abandoned. _Maybe the owners left and no ine wanted the house?_ He though, when suddenly an idea struck him.

"Hey Tubbo!"

"Yeah?" Tomny heard Tubbo say, followed by a series of footsteps.

"We should make this our base!" Tommy turned around just in time to see Tubbo's face light up, then frown again.

"That would be nice, but we should really be focusing on getting back home." Tommy let out a frustrated sigh. "Nah, I'm messing with you. Look what I found upstairs." Tubbo handed Tommy a rolled up piece of paper.

"Is this a map?" Tommy laughed. "Man, even the owners of this place got lost in that blasted forest."

"Let's get our of here and come back tomorrow, yeah?" Tubbo asked. "My mum's gonna be furious."

"Yeah, why not," Tommy said. "Tomorrow after school. You bring cleaning supplies." Tomny made his way out of the house.

"Wait...why do _I_ have to bring the cleaning stuff?" Tubbo yelled after Tommy, running after him.

In a literal way. Tubbo didn't say, but the place still felt ominous, even though Tommy seemed to be used to the atmosphere after the minutes they had spend in it, it felt like they were being watched or something. _Maybe it's my third eye that magically activated or_ _something_ _. Or just me being paranoid. Both works._


	3. Chapter 2

The sound of laughter and bickering broke the calm and silent atmosphere around the house. "I found it!" A familiar voice yelled.

"Oh god, it's those kids again," Wilbur floated through the wall of his bedroom, down the floor, and into the living room where Phil and Techno were watching the two teenagers enter the house.

"So, what did you bring?" The blonde—who, from what they learned from their conversation yesterday, was named Tommy—asked.

"I got brooms." Tubbo held up the two brooms in his hand. "I got a couple of rags in my bag, dusters, rubbish bags, and I nabbed our portable vacuum cleaner."

"Oh. Cool. I brought a bucket." Tommy raised the blue bucket he was holding.

Wilbur huffed out a laugh as Tubbo stared at Tommy for a second.

"I brought all this, and you got a shitty bucket?" Tubbo made a face. "Why?"

"I dunno? I thought it would be funny."

Wilbur shook his head which held a smile. "So, Tech, wanna scared the shit out of these kids?"

Technoblade crossed his arms, thinking. "Yeah, we could do that, but think about this Wilbur," he said with his usual monotonous tone. "Child Labor."

"What? No!" Phil scolded both of them.

"Oh come on Phil," Techno started. "This place haven't been cleaned for three years."

"We'll let them clean the house 'til it's spotless, and once they're comfortable, we haunt them!"

Phil stared at the two who had mischievous glints in their eyes. He sighed, giving into their antics. "Fine."

"Yes!"

"Woo."

So they watched them. Wilbur followed around the blonde kid, while Techno followed around the short one. Phil went to do his own thing, but he said he'd be checking in every now and then. 

Tommy watched Tubbo grab a broom, as well as a duster, a rag, and rubbish bag from his rucksack. "You go clean upstairs." Tubbo rushed to the kitchen, hearing a string of protests from Tommy. 

Of course, he was ignored. Tommy ruffled his hair in irritation before grabbing his own cleaning supplies and heading up the stairs. He ended up in front of a bedroom located at the end of the hall. It had a white door, a pretty standard color. "Wilbur's Room," Tommy read the plaque out loud. He opened the door and was greeted by falling dust making him cough. 

Tommy groaned. "Should have brought masks." He dug through his pockets and found his red bandana. Tying it around his head, covering his nose and mouth, he started cleaning. He dusted the walls first, the dust, as well as cobwebs ended up on he floor. "God, this is gonna take forever." He grimaced at the amount of musical items, guitars to be precise, that filled the room.

Wilbur floated on top of his old bed as he watched the teen, who was now removing dust from his graduation picture that was hung on his wall, in amusement. He heard Tommy huff out a laugh. "This guy looks like a dork," Tommy said to himself. 

Wilbur could feel his eye twitch, annoyed with the comment. "A dork huh?" He floated towards the half open door. He concentrated energy on his hand making it slightly tangible. He pulled the door back and slammed it close. Wilbur laughed as Tommy practically sprung up with a loud yelp. 

Downstairs, Tubbo yelled, "Tommy! Don't go slamming the doors! They're delicate!" Only to get a "It wasn't me!" as a reply. Tubbo shook his head and returned to what he was doing. He placed the expired milk inside the rubbish bag before grabbing another container. 

Techno watched as Tubbo brought the jar near his face. "St-" he furrowed his eyebrows- "Strea- oh wait. Strawberry Jam." Techno raised an eyebrow. This has been happening a lot. Techno wondered whether he had eye problems, and if so, why he wasn't wearing glasses or something. 

Hours went by, it was mostly quiet, with the random "Goddammit"s from Tommy, and the place was getting tidier and tidier with every second that passes. "Expired." Tubbo dropped the batteries in the rubbish bag. He tied the bag close and carried it outside the house, like what he did with the others that were filled earlier. He dropped them just outside the porch and headed back inside.

"Hey Tubbo," Tommy said as he walked down the stairs. "I'm gonna use that vacuum of your's." 

Tubbo grabbed the item from inside his rucksack and handed it to Tommy. "Do you even know how to use it?" 

Tommy took the vacuum from Tubbo and sneered. "'course I do." He flipped the item around trying to find the switch. "How do you- where's the on button of this stupid thing?"

Wilbur floated beside Techno who looked amused with the whole situation. 

"I don't know either," Tubbo admitted. "I don't use the vacuum, mum doesn't trust me not to break it."

Tommy stopped and faced Tubbo. "But she let you bring it here right?"

"No," Tubbo said. "Why did you think I said 'nabbed' the portable vacuum cleaner?" 

Tommy laughed, "You are going to be in so much shit when you get home." 

"Give it to me." Tubbo attempted to grab the vacuum from Tommy. "I reckon I can turn it on." 

"Oh no you don't, bitch!" Tommy brought the item away from Tubbo. " I'll figure this out." 

"No!" Tubbo whined. "You'll break it."

Wilbur couldn't help but shake his head as he watch the two teenagers fight over who can figure out how a portable vacuum cleaner works.

"What's going on here?" Phil floated besides Techno.

"Apparently, leaving cleaning duties to children was a bad idea," Techno said.

"Yeah, who's great idea was that I wonder," Wilbur said before facing Phil. "They can't figure out how to turn the vacuum cleaner on."

"You gotta admit though, they cleaned this place fast. It hasn't even been five hours." Techno looked around the living room, which was clear of the picture frames, clothes, and trinkets that used to lay around. The kitchen was iffy, but he can't really blame them, almost everything in there was now rusty. The bathroom had no progress though. Either they're saving it for last or not planning on cleaning it at all.

Phil laughed at the sight. "Do you think we should help them?"

"Yup, they look pathetic." Wilbur floated closer to Tommy and Tubbo. He took a bit of energy to make his index finger able to touch physical objects, before pressing the on button located near the handle of the vacuum.

"Ha! I told you I could turn it on," Tommy said, feinting a sigh he continued. "I really _am_ the greatest."

"You sure are. I bet you wouldn't mind vacuuming the couches then?" Tubbo asked, and without waiting for an answer, he headed upstairs. Tubbo could hear Tommy's protests as he walked. The clearest one being "Come back here bitch!" 

The three ghosts could only shake their head as they watched the scenario unfold. _These kids are a handful._

Phil and Wilbur followed Tubbo upstairs. "Oh, Tommy did a good job here." They hear him say. Tubbo stared at the picture that was nailed on the wall. It was, what he thought, a family picture. "Who nailed this into the wall?" Tubbo whispered to himself, his eyebrows furrowed. 

"Hey Phil," Wilbur said. "You know, that Tommy kid kept saying that you were old as he cleaned." 

The statement earned itself a hearty laugh from Phil. "To be fair, I am—well, was—old. We're not really aging anymore are we?" He said as they followed Tubbo enter Techno's old room.

Tubbo grabbed hold of the closet door and pushed it open, only to be met with its contents nearly falling on top of him. Clothes, books, scratch papers, wrappers, possibly all the rubbish that was inside the room was stuffed inside the closet.

"You really had the audacity to ignore me just now, did you?" Tubbo heard Tommy's voice as he approached the room, Techno floating behind him.

"The fuck is this?" Tubbo turned to faced the blond boy. 

Tommy let out an awkward laugh, "Well you see, I actually completely forgot to check that closet." 

Tubbo raised his eyebrow, "Bullshit." His face give a pointed look. 

"So what? It's not like we're gonna use the closet!"

"Still though," Tubbo said, "it would have been better if everything was cleaned out."

"You know, I've been thinking," Tommy said.

"Oh, that's dangerous," Tubbo said with a chuckle. Wilbur, who had been with the boy for the entirety of the day burst out laughing, earning himself weird looks from Techno and Phil.

"Bitch," Tommy deadpanned. "Anyway. Why is this place still full of stuff if it's supposed to be abandoned?"

"Oh yeah. That's a very good point. Maybe they really didn't like the place." Tubbo looked around the room, which still contained huge amounts of furniture, including a wicked computer setup. "Or their stuff? I have no clue."

Tommy looked a bit uneasy as he spoke. "You know how you told me about feeling uneasy about this place yesterday?" 

"Yeah, but I think it's because it was late yesterday. I don't feel too bad since the sun's just starting to set and all."

"Yeah, what if it _is_ haunted?"   
  
"Why do you ask?" Tubbo gestured for Tommy to hand over the vacuum.

Tommy handed the other boy the item. "There had been really odd things that happened while I was up here." 

The loud sound of the vacuum echoed as Tubbo ran it across the bed. "Like what exactly?"  
  
"The doors suddenly closing out of nowhere," Tommy said. "And I'm telling you now, there is no way that it was the wind."

"Oh, you mean you weren't slamming the doors on purpose?"

"No." Tommy scrunched his face. "That's stupid. Also, either someone was moving shit around or things were walking on their own."

Techno and Phil both looked at Wilbur, unamused. "What?" The brunette asked. "His reactions are hilarious! He just kept swearing at the air."

"Maybe you're just seeing things?" Tubbo suggested. "I don't know man. Nothing weird has happened to me all day." 

There was a buzzing sound. "Is- is your phone ringing?" Tommy asked. "I though there isn't any signal here."

"It's my alarm." Tubbo showed his phone, which displayed 6:15 pm. "Mother dearest said I have to get home before 7. She was fuming when I got home yesterday, not knowing where I was and all that."

"We're going then?"  
  
"Yeah, let me just grab my stuff." Tubbo began collecting the brooms and dusters, his vacuum cleaner. The rags he threw away. "Where's your bucket?" Tubbo asked as they exit the front door.   
  
"Left it," he said making Tubbo laugh.

The three ghosts watched as the kids walked away. Tommy stopped for a moment and looked back. Wilbur smirked as he concentrated his energy on himself. 

Techno watched as Tommy rubbed his eyes—eyebrows furrowed—then tilt his head to the side as he kept staring at the space beside him before running after Tubbo. "Wilbur you fucker," he said.

"Did you just fucking show yourself to the kid?" Phil asked. 

Their comments only sent Wilbur cackling. 


	4. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AHHHH! Thank you for the kind comments!❤️ They made me really giddy and motivated. Hopefully this new chapter would be as good as the first ones.

The afternoon sun shining across the sky was a refreshing sight considering it was cloudy all week. But instead of enjoying it, there he was. Tommy stood outside the school entrance contemplating on where to go on from there.

"Tommy," Tubbo whined. "Don't tell me I have to drag you all the way there."

"You do realize that you've been pulling on my arm for five minutes now, and I _still_ haven't moved an inch." Tommy stared at Tubbo who was practically latched on his arm, pulling on it in an attempt to make him move towards the forest. "Have I ever told you how clingy you are?"

"Loads of times." Tubbo stopped his attempts with a sigh. "Which doesn't make sense really. If I remember correctly, you followed me around school everyday since you mo-"

"Okay!" Tommy grabbed Tubbo's wrist and began leading him towards the forest. "Off we go!" He yelled making the brunett smirk.

"I don't understand why you're so avoidant of this place." Tubbo ducked under a tree branch, but managed to stumble on a root in exchange. "Just yesterday, at this exact time, you were beaming with excitement."

Tommy swatted a bee away from his face with his arm before responding. "I told you what I saw. There was a fucking—are you even listening?"

"Oh!" Tubbo pulled his attention back on Tommy. "Yup, I was. I definitely _wasn't_ playing with that bee just now." He made a not so subtle movement to let the bee fly off his palms.

Tommy rolled his eyes."So yeah, there was this fucking—I don't even know. I think it's a ghost."

"Why'd you say that?"

"It looked like one of the guys on the picture," he said. "You know, the brown haired bloke."

"Maybe it's a trick of the light," Tubbo said thoughtfully. "The door was slightly open and you happened to look at a picture that I missed?"

"No, no." Tommy shook his head. "I refuse to believe that awful theory of your's. I know what I saw."

"Okay." Tubbo shrugged his shoulders. "If you _want_ the house to be haunted, you do you."

"Tubbo," Tommy whined. "You're supposed to be my bro. My brother. Why do you not believe me."

"Beacuse," Tubbo started. "I haven't seen anything weird happen. Sure that thing looks scary as shit." He gestured to the house that just came into view. "Which is exactly why we're painting those walls once we have actual money to buy paint—but apart from that, it seems normal." Tubbo twisted the doorknob and went inside. Tommy following him, silently mocking his words.

"Why did we come back here anyway?" Tommy asked, crossing his arms across his chest.

"Well, it's supposed to be a secret place isn't it?" Tubbo looked back at him. "So I thought, why don't we decorate for a bit."

Tommy hummed. "Yeah, seems like a pla—"

"Also, the bathroom's not gonna clean itself," Tubbo said, already inching away from the scene. "Better put that bucket into good use eh?"

Tommy groaned in annoyance. "Tubbo!" He yelled after the boy who sprinted towards the backyard. "Don't—I'm not—aw come on!"

Tommy walked towards the bathroom. It looked worse inside his head, but that doesn't make it any better. The room was still mucky, mossy, and had the smell of wet towels dried wrong. He hrabbed his blue bucket that he left by the door the day before. _Why did I get stuck with this job? This is fucking bullshit!_

A lot later, Tubbo was back inside the living room. Focused on the wall that was directly in front of the front door. He tilted his head in wonder.

"God, that was horrid." Tommy came out of the bathroom—which, even from a far, already looked like it was in better condition. His trousers, as well as sleeves, both rolled up in an attempt to keep them dry. "What are you doing?"

Tubbo lookes at him. "I'm trying to figure out what to do with this 'HOME HOME' plaque," he gestured at the said item that was hanged on the wall directly opposite to the front door. "Do you reckon we keep it there, or should we change it to 'Home Base' or something?"

"Let's change it," Tommy decided. "But definitely not Home Base." He grabbed the plaque and removed it, before placing it inside one of the drawers of the side table that was against that wall. "What else have you changed while I was suffering in the damn bathroom?"

"I cleaned up the fallen leaves around the yard. Stuffed the remaining things in the living room that isn't ours down the basement, rearranged the couches so we can have more middle room space, uhhh, that's about it," Tubbo listed off. "What I want is to bring our stuff here. I'm thinking of bringing a couple snacks that we can stash in the kitchen."

"Oh, cool. I'll bring some coke," Tommy said. "Wait—" Tubbo laughed. "That sounded bad. I meant coca-cola."

The two decided to just come back tomorrow with supplies so that they can personalize the house. Tommy even suggested buying paint the next day if they have enough money, and if not, they'd find a way.

So when Wilbur, Techno, and Philza came home from wondering around the forest—getting a bit of ghosty exercise—they were confused.

"What the fuck? Where's the 'HOME HOME' plaque?" Wilbur yelled, frantically floating through the house.

"Can we focus on the fact that the living room is practically deformed right now?" Techno asked.

"Nah, nah, nah," Phil shook his head. "We agreed that those kids would clean the house, not rearrange it. This looks fucking awful."

"Where's the fucking plaque!"

"I better help Wilbur before he makes the house look worse," Phil said before looking at Techno. "You alright with restoring the old living room look?"

"Yeah. Go make sure Wilbur doesn't waste too much energy."

The next day, the three made sure not to go out, expecting that the teens would be back again. They were right, and were now currently watching them uncap a paint can lid.

"They're painting the house white?" Phil asked as he stared at the two from a distance. Tommy was holding up a wide paint brush, threatening to paint all over Tubbo's clothes—which Tubbo didn't mind honesty, he changed into clothes that were old and needed replacing anyway.

"I quite like white. It's better than what the color is right now." Wilbur nodded at himself.

"What's wrong with black?" Techno asked. "Isn't the color of a house supposed to reflect the people who owns it? Black is perfect. It looks dead...like us."

Wilbur was about to say something, but was interrupted by yelling. "Tubbo! You bitch! Look at what you did!"

"Your shirt's white, the paint's white, what's the difference?" Tubbo was sent running by his own comment. Tommy was right behind him, a paint roller in hand, and murder in his eyes.

"Fuck you! I got some in my hair, now I look old," Tubbo said. "I'm gonna go clean up." He opened the door to the house, and entered for the forst time that day. "Uhh, Tommy."

"What? What?" Tommy appeared behind Tubbo, who hadn't left the doorway. He followed Tubbo's line of sight and found out what 'what?' was.

The 'HOME HOME' plaque was right in front of them. Hung on the wall—in fact, if it had eyes, it probably would be burning holes at them. That wasn't all, the living room was back to what it used to look like, and it sent chills to the teenagers' spines.

"Hey, Tubbo... you don't think..."

"Shit," Wilbur said. "Do you think they know?"

"Why are you acting so surprised? You're the one constantly giving away our existence," Techno said.

"They already had hunches since the first time they got here. I doubt that they don't know. It's the only explanation, " Phil said.

"Philza has spoken. Wilbur you've fucked us all up," Techno threw his arms in the air in a dramatic manner.

Their conversation was cut short by Tubbo finding his voice again. "You mean... there are people who had found this base before us and are now trying to take over?"

"Well, I mean, if they found it first, they aren't necessarily takin—but yeah, the point is, we have trespassers," Tommy paused. "We should buy traps."

"And a new doorknob."

Tommy nodded. "And a new doorknob."

With that, the two were out the door, leaving the three ghosts stuck between shock, confusion, amusement, and laughter all at once.

"Well, I mean, I guess there's that," Phil said.


	5. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the super late update. School stuff is annoying, and the fact that the streams for the dream smp for this whole week was plot heavy wasn't helping. I didn't want to be left behind, so I had to sacrifice my writing time.
> 
> Also, thank you again for your kind comments. I'm glad that you all find this story intresting ❤️

The next day was uneventful to say the least. The three ghosts expected the two teens to rush into the house with a whole crate full of bear traps, but what really happened was they came to clear out a few more stuff. So they came to a conclusion that the whole 'set up traps' thing wasn't gonna happen. 

Oh how wrong they were.

Phil 'woke up' that Saturday morning to the bickering of Techno and Wilbur. Groaning, he floated up from his bed and phased through the door. "What in the world are you t—" Phil stopped to stare at the monstrosity of a house that they lived in. 

"Tommy and Tubbo came here early in the morning and set that whole thing up," Wilbur said with a proud smirk. 

"And he just watched them do it." Techno clearly didn't like the situation.

The situation? Well, the house was now covered in ropes that are supposed to trigger trap doors, falling buckets of water, and even nets. 

"Umm, not what I expected but at least this is somewhat...tamer? I guess?" Phil said, unsure.

"They also rigged the front and back yard with bear traps," the two said in sync.

"Ahh," Phil nodded, "there it is." He looked around the house before asking, "Where are they now?" 

"They went to get lunch," Wilbur said. "Most likely won't be back for an hour."

"Exactly why this is the perfect moment to get rid of them." Techno crossed his arms across his chest.

"Why get rid of them?" Wilbur raised an eyebrow. 

Techno's eye twitched in annoyance. "You were the one who wanted to scare them away in the first place!"

"Yeah," Wilbur said. 

"Exactly!"

"But that was before I took a liking to them!" 

"You're being stubborn again!"

"I wasn't the one who suggested fucking child labor!"

"Phil, help me out here." Techno turned to the older man.

"To be honest with you Techno, I actually quite like the company," Phil stated. "It's a lot livelier when those two are around." 

"See," Wilbur smirked. Techno could only stare at the two in disbelief. 

"Hey Phil, what do you say we introduce ourselves with the little gremlins?" Wilbur asked.

Phil hummed, "I don't see why not." He and Wilbur both looked at pink haired boy.

Sighing, Techno agreed. _Fucking peer pressure._ "Fine, but we're doing it my way."

****

After a lunch consisting of an unhealthy amount of fast food, Tommy and Tubbo decided that it was about time that they went back to the house to check if the traps managed to catch intruders. 

"Imagine if someone actually got caught in a bear trap," Tommy said absentmindedly as they walked back.

"Where did you get so much bear traps anyway?" Tubbo asked. "Ropes? Sure you can have a bunch of rope lying around in your house for no reason, but, bear traps? Really? You sure you didn't steal any of those?"

Tommy rolled his eyes. "What the fuck dude? I cannot believe that you'd think that about me." Tubbo gave him a blank stare, making Tommy shift his arms to fold across his chest. "Alright, I steal a couple of pens and shit every now and then, but it's not my fault! In fact they should be the ones who's sorry. Leaving their things lying on their desks unattended," he shook his head, "how careless."

Tubbo chuckled. "But in all honesty though, you didn't steal those bear traps, did you?"

"'Of course not. My dad had all these from that one camping trip that he and his co-workers went to." Tommy's head perked up as he spotted the wooden roof of the house coming up. "Watch your step," he said, looking down to the ground avoiding wires and traps.

"Is it me, or does the house look," Tubbo stopped to think of a word to describe it. "I dunno, brighter?" He stopped just in front of the steps of the porch.

"Is it?" Tommy tilted his head, squinting a little. "I don't really see it." He reached forward and turned the doorknob, pushing the door open. "Guess we didn't catch anyone."

The place looked untouched, just how they left it, but for some reason, Tommy felt that something was out of place. He just couldn't tell what. And with Tubbo not mentioning anything, he figured it was just another one of his so-called paranoid moments. 

"Do you reckon we set up traps upstairs?" Tubbo asked, climbing the stairs. 

"Sure," Tommy said, following, "I'm almost out of stuff though."

They stopped inside the room which is closest to the stairs, Phil's room. "I'm gonna rig the windows." Tommy placed his rucksack on the desk before the window, grabbing a thin string. He began tying it to the window's handle but stopped. "Hey Tubbo." He turned to face the brunet who looked like he was grabbing something from under the bed. 

"Yeah?" Tubbo peaked out.

"Have these lanterns always been here?" 

Tubbo shuffled from under the bed and stood up, observing the room. "Have they? Surely not. We would have noticed, wouldn't we?"

"Are these lit?" Tommy attempted to open the lantern on the desk, but before he could, the fire on the candle's wick disappeared. The same thing happened to the rest of the lanterns inside the room, making the surroundings much darker than they had realized. "The fuck?" Tommy yelled in alarm.

"Tommy," Tubbo said with slightly shaky voice. "Let's get out of here." He pulled on the blond's arm and led him out of the room. 

The hallway was no better. There, they can hear music coming from Wilbur's room, a s well as a faint clicking sound from Technoblade's room. "Come on." Tommy ran towards the stairs, only to trip forward as the hall carpet was pulled from under him. 

Tommy could feel the adrenaline coursing through his veins as he tried his best to roll down the stairs, taking as little damage as possible. Tubbo was lucky enough to not be standing on the carpet, but he ran down as the bedroom doors went crazy.

"Alright," Tubbo said, huffing, "Okay." He helped Tommy stand. "What the hell is going on?" He was yelling at this point because of all the sounds—doors and windows slamming, scratching of wooden furniture, even the clicking if light switches that don't work. The flickering of the flames in the lantern—which were non-existent when they came by earlier—was not helping at all.

The two of them stood in the middle of the living room, back to back, each holding something to in front of them. Light chuckling could be heard as random items swirled up into the air, surrounding the two.

"What the fuck! Leave us alone!" Tommy yelled.

"I don't like this," Tubbo said with a shaky voice, repeating the phrase over and over again as his hand clutched the back of Tommy's shirt.

The tornado of items swirled faster around them, the wind picking up making their hair go wild. Then it suddenly stops, dropping everything to the ground with a loud crash, making the two scream.

Tommy was the first to snap out of the shock when he heard laughing. Not the menacing type that you'd expect considering the string of events. It was the one where you would assume the person would die because of laughing too hard.

Tubbo's eyes widen as the cause of laughing was revealed. He should have listened to Tommy more.

"'Sup nerds."


	6. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yoooo, thank you for the comments and kudos! They legitimately make me so so happy ♥.

A pink haired guy, a beanied boy, and an old looking man suddenly appeared in a room. It sounds like something from a punchline, but it's really not. It was terrifying. They suddenly faded into existence and were semi-transparent.

"What the fuck!" Tommy threw the throw pillow he was holding at them, which phased through their bodies. "Fucking hell." He scrambled away from them. 

Tubbo who was sat beside him let out a nervous chuckle. "Ghosts. Who would have known," he said, shuffling away as well. "What are you planning to do with us?"

"What? You gonna possess us or something?" Tommy yelled. "Possess this, bitch!" He threw another pillow towards them, going through the brown haired guy. 

Said ghost laughed and floated right in front of Tommy's face. "Is the little gremlin threatened?" The statement made Tommy growl at the older boy. 

Tommy squinted his eyes and a memory struck him. "Hey! You're the guy that appeared that one time we were leaving!"

Wilbur was about to retort but was interrupted.

"Enough Wilbur," the blond man said. "Sorry we have to meet like this," he scratched the back of his head. "This one over here, Technoblade—" he pointed to the pink haired man wearing a pig mask—"wanted a big entrance."

Techno shrugged his shoulders. "It was either this or get rid of you in a much more terrifying way," he said. "But alas, Wilbur and Phil here somehow took a liking to you two."

Tubbo the perked up, "Wait, does that mean you're friendly ghosts?" He asked, beaming at them. Tommy couldn't help but facepalm.

"That? That's what you're getting from this experience?" Tommy raised an eyebrow. Tubbo nodded at him, making Tommy sigh, Wilbur and Phil chuckled, and Techno grinned.

"Tommy and Tubbo, right?" Phil asked pointing to them respectively.

The two teens nodded. "You'd know wouldn't you? Creepy ghosts, eavesdropping," Tommy said.

"It wouldn't be eavesdropping since you two keep yelling at each other when you're in different rooms," Techno said.

"Since you know our names, can we know your's?" Tubbo asked, looking at Wilbur as he was the one hovering closest to the duo.

"We literally just called each other by our names in front of you," Wilbur pointed out.

Tubbo hummed as he closed his eyes, arms folded across his chest, thinking. "You're Wilbur," he pointed to him. "And you two are Phil—" he pointed to the blond—"and uhh Technoblade?" Phil nodded at him.

"Well, nice meeting you—not really—but what the hell man?" Tommy yelled. "What—What was even the point of all that?" 

"No meaningful point, that's for sure," Techno answered in his monotonous tone. "It was purely for entertainment purposes."

"Are you kicking us out then?" Tubbo asked. "That's why you're showing yourselves to us."

Phil shook his head in disagreement. "If we wanted you two gone, Techno would probably have given you heart attacks," he said. "In fact, we're allowing you guys to stay. We just wanted to show ourselves so you wouldn't set up trap like these—" he gestured to the room—"ever again, 'cause these are safety hazards."

"Really?" The two teens said in unison, one in excitement, the other in skepticism.

"But a rule stands," Wilbur stated. "The 'Home Home' plaque stays. Don't think I didn't hear you two talking shit about it."

After all the commotion of their initial meeting. Tommy and Tubbo were gathering all their trap materials.

"Damn it Tommy, if you've seen a ghost, why would you say that it's probably a trespasser?" Tubbo asked.

"Hey, hey," Tommy began, looking back over his shoulder. "Don't blame this on me, you're the one who denied it when I told you."

"That's because you said that the bad vibes I was feeling was probably just something else."

"You two were actually making very good points," Wilbur said.

"You were just too dumb to connect them," Techno said.

Tommy glared at the two. "I don't like you," he said. "I think it would be better if you help us clean."

"Nah," Wilbur said with a laugh. "Do you have any idea how much energy it took for that whole scare routine?"

"No, 'cause last I checked, we aren't dead," Tommy replied, making Wilbur's smile drop and proceeded to stare at the younger boy with an expressionless face.

"But Phil looks fine though," Tubbo said pointing to the man at the other side of the room who was gathering the buckets of water and emptying them.

"Phil's job was lighting and delighting the lamps, so barely energy was used. Wilbur and I had to make that tornado of items. Not to mention being visible still uses some energy," Techno said. "So, you're on your own. See ya," he said before making himself invisible again.

"You know what? Fine, I'll help," Wilbur said. "You missed one." He pointed to a glass shard on the floor before disappearing himself.

"Did you really just pissed off ghosts—who may I add, could potentially kill us?" Tubbo yelled in alarm.

A hearty laugh caught the attention of the two. Phil was floating towards them holding a stack of buckets before placing them on the floor beside Tommy. "I wouldn't worry about it. Techno's naturally like that," he said. "Wil's just being grumpy because you actually had a decent comeback."

Tommy smirked. "Bitter fucks."

Tubbo sighed. "They're letting us use their house as a base and you really want to ruin that don't you?" Tommy didn't say anything. "Anyway, thanks for letting us use this place, Phil."

"No problem, mate. It's about time we get company anyway," Phil said ruffling Tubbo's hair.

"How do you guys even do that?" Tommy asked pointing at the other two.

"Do what?"  
  
"Ghosts shouldn't be able to touch things, should they?" 

"Oh, yeah, that's how things are initially," Phil said. "But we discovered that we could use our harnessed energy to move things, make ourselves visible and such." 

"So, while we stay here, will you be visible or not?" Tommy asked.

"I probably would be, just so you would know whenever I'm around. Those two however—" Phil sighed, referring to Techno and Wilbur—"I bet they'll be messing around with you two quite a bit."

Tubbo let out a nervous chuckle, "Well, at least we won't freak out as much." He rose up from his place on the floor, "Hey Phil, where'd you get these lamps? They weren't here earlier."  
  
"Basement. You didn't actually check anything that was already stashed there. We have a bunch of those, props for that one time that Techno was forced to participate in a play for extra credit."  
  
"Ohh, then let's keep them here then," Tubbo told Tommy. Phil raised an eyebrow.

"We were planning to buy stuff to light this place up so we can stay even after the sunset," Tubbo explained. "Kinda hard to find something that didn't use electricity. We didn't even think of lamps."

"Yeah, but we already used the rest of our money on the food we're bringing tomorrow, so we wouldn't be buying any lamps anyway," Tommy said.

"Yes, I heard you two talking about bringing food sometime," Phil nodded.

"Do you reckon we can stay here overnight or something?" Tubbo asked.

Phil hummed, "I don't see why not," he said. "As long as your parents know where you are of course," he quickly added.

"That's so cool, we practically own this house now!" Tommy said. 

"We still own—"

"Yeah, we have this whole forest too!" Tubbo cut off Phil.

Phil sighed, "Well if you want joined ownership, you might want to finish cleaning up."

"Oh, right." 

With Phil's help, Tubbo and Tommy quickly finished cleaning up. All the items used or their traps were stored in the basement. "That's a big basement," Tommy said as he closed the door that led to it. 

"I know, we practically stuffed everything there and there's still room," Tubbo agreed.

"We'll be back tomorrow big man," Tommy said.

"Bye Phil!"

Phil waved at the two as they walked further away from the house. The map still in their hands. "Don't get lost!" He called after them.

"Aww, they already left?"

Phil chuckled, "I thought you didn't like them, Tech." He turned around to be faced with his eldest son holding a small crate of fireworks.  
  
"Oh, I don't," Techno said. "I'll save these for tomorrow then." He turned around to float away.

"Whe—Where did you even get fireworks?" Phil asked, following his son.

"That's for me to know Phil," Techno smirked.


	7. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yo! New chapter here, bunch of references and basically just them hanging around the house.
> 
> Thank you for all the kudos and comments! They make me really happy and motivated. I'll try uploading more since Christmas break have officially started for me. ❤️

Wilbur was floating around the house, waiting for something entertaining to arrive. Luckily, the event presented itself the moment he got to the living room. Phil and Technoblade were both already there, not really talking—it seemed that they were visible—but they were watching the scene. Though, Wilbur wasn’t sure if entertaining would be the word to describe it. It was something along the lines of amusing. 

“Why is Tommy holding a knife?” Wilbur asked. “Tommy, why are you holding a knife?” 

The boy in question was indeed holding the sharp object with his right hand, dangerously pointed in front of him. 

“None of your business, bitch!” Tommy turned, the knife moving along the motion. 

“Hey! Watch it!” Wilbur yelled. 

“What?” Tommy asked, the pitch of his voice rising a bit, as he lowered the knife. “What? It’s not like it’s gonna hit you or anything.” 

“Here comes Tubbo,” Phil said, redirecting everyone’s attention to the brown haired boy who entered the room carrying a pretty big box.

He dropped it down on the carpeted floor, the box making a loud thump as it made contact. “Snacks are here!”

“You two bought a whole box worth of food?” Techno raised an eyebrow.

“Yeah! These don’t expire for a long time, so it’s a good investment if I do say so myself,” Tubbo said. 

“Alright, let’s open this bad boy up!” Tommy grabbed the edge of the box and prepared to cut it open. 

“Careful Tommy,” Phil said. 

“Oh ease up big man, I’m not gonna cut myself or anything,” Tommy rolled his eyes. 

“Well, I’m more worried that you’d accidentally stab Tubbo,” Phil said. 

“Wouldn’t put it pass him,” Techno muttered. 

Tommy looked at Tubbo, “Oh, right.” He pointed the knife downwards, this time actually facing the box and not his best friend’s side. 

Tommy managed to open the box without any blood spill, revealing a whole load of junk food.

“You’ll get sick eating all that,” commented Phil, which of course the two ignored.

“Well, that was boring,” Techno said. “I’m off.” He then disappeared from Tommy and Tubbo’s visions. 

“We're gonna stuff these in the cupboards,” Tommy said, grabbing a handful of the snacks and carrying them to the kitchen. 

“I don’t know why he didn’t just get the whole box?” Tubbo stood up and grabbed the box and followed Tommy. 

“I’ll be scouting the forest again,” Phil told Wilbur. “You supervise for a while okay?” 

Wilbur only nodded before floating to the kitchen himself. There he found Tubbo beginning to organize one of the cupboards. Meanwhile the one by Tommy was overflowing. 

Wilbur let out a fond chuckle before floating towards the blond. “You’re horrible at organizing. Do you know that?” 

Tommy glared at the older one. “Well, I think it looks great because I did it and I am awesome.” 

Wilbur sighed, a smile still visible on his face. “You can fit more things inside if you put the bigger bags at the back and the smaller ones down front.”

Tommy frowned at the advise, but attempted to do so anyway. “Aw, Wilbur,” he complained. “This makes no sense.”

“Wha—What do you mean?” 

“Look at this shit! This is taller but the other one’s wider!” Tommy held out two bags with that description. “How am I supposed to know what to do with this?” 

“You know what?” Wilbur asked, floating closer towards the boy. “I’ll—I’ll do that.” He grabbed the items from the others hand and stared at the still awful looking organization. 

While Wilbur tried to figure out how to fit them all, Tommy walked over to Tubbo who already cleared out the box, some of the items still scattered across the counter. 

“Hey, hey Tubbo,” Tommy started. “I just realized that you can literally fit inside this.” He lightly tapped the side of the box with his foot. 

“You reckon I can?” Tubbo stepped his left foot inside the box. 

“The fuck are carrot sticks?” Tommy asked, a bag of said item in his hands. 

“Oh, they’re just carrots, obviously. I like them very much,” Tubbo said. 

“I finished it Tommy.” Wilbur approached them. “Oh, look Tubbo’s so small.” He eyed Tubbo who was seated comfortably inside the box. 

Tommy laughed. “Tubbo in a box, ship him to the Bermuda.” 

“Tubbox! Tubbo in a box!” Wilbur cheered.

“He looks like those pets that you keep at home, want a carrot?” Tommy tossed the bag inside the box, Tubbo catching it. 

“Oh, my turn.” Wilbur floated further, aiming, then throwing the bag of carrots directly at Tubbo’s hands. “Yes!” He said as Tubbo caught it. 

“Oh move over ghost.” Tommy grabbed another bag of carrots and stood at the other side of the room before throwing the bag, missing the target by a whole inch. 

“I definitely nailed that,” Tommy said. 

“You obviously didn’t,” Wilbur gestured to the bag on the floor.

“In another universe, I believe I did.” 

Tubbo groaned, “Not that other universe thing of yours again.” 

“What? You prove it isn’t real then,” Tommy challenged. 

Tubbo stood up from the box, the packs of carrots still in his hands. “You finish up here, yeah?” 

“Why do I have to do it?” Tommy complained. 

“You owe me for that Math homework, Tommy.” Tubbo turned, and walked away, stretching his arms as he did. 

Though he was sure he wasn’t supposed to hear it, Tubbo could tell that Tommy was repeating what he said with a mocking voice. 

Chuckling to himself, Tubbo continued to the backyard. Once he stepped out of the door, his eyes lit up with excitement. “Bees!” He rushed down the three steps and approached the tiny hive that he haven’t noticed before. 

“Hello there,” he said as he watch them buzz around. He grabbed a branch before pulling himself upwards, settling on the same branch, a few inches away from the hive.

He watched the bees with a happy smile and would occasionally talk to them. “—I mean, I didn’t start the fire!” Tubbo told the bees.

A small whistle of air could be heard a few moments before a loud bang erupted from behind Tubbo. The next thing he knew, he was screaming, and was down on the ground once again. No, he didn’t fall, but the rushed motion of him hopping down made him lose balance and land on the ground, on his bum still.

His vision was filled with different sparkly colors. Another whistle of air and explosion—this time a little further and higher—countered his screaming, followed by a laugh.

Tubbo looked to his left and found non-other than Technoblade himself, a smirk on his face and a contraption on his hand.

“The fuck man!” Tubbo yelled at him.

“What happened?” Tommy came rushing through the back door, Wilbur slowly following behind, chuckling.

“You really went along with that didn’t you?” Wilbur asked his brother.

“It was too good of an opportunity not to take.”

“You shot a fucking firework behind me!”

“Yeah. I did that a lot when I was alive.” Techno shrugged his shoulders.

“And dead apparently,” Tommy said, a little calmer this time seeing as nothing really bad happened.

“You know, statistically, there’s at least one universe where Techno actually shot you with a firework,” Tommy added.

“Oh shut up, you’ve been on about other universes ever since that one time our Science teacher strayed away from the topic she should have been teaching,” Tubbo said, standing up properly.

“What the hell are you four doing?” Phil manifested out of thin air—well that was what it looked like to Tommy and Tubbo. “Techno, I already told you to not shoot fireworks near trees.”

“Yeah! Arson!” Tommy yelled, Tubbo cheering behind him. 

Wilbur bursts out laughing. Techno smirked, before loading his rocket launcher with another firework, aiming for the sky this time, he launched it.

Phil couldn’t help but sigh, “For goodness sakes.” He watched the firework rise up.

Once it reached its peak, it exploded in different colors, forming the shape of a flower. The sun might not have set fully yet, but the atmosphere of the forest made it seem that the sky was darker, making the sparkly pattern on the sky shine brightly. 


	8. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you once more for all the kudos and comments! They are very much appreciated! ❤️

Tommy watched the hands of the clock move ever so slowly as he was seated during their last class of the day. He let his head fall on his desk, forehead making contact with the hard material, making a quiet thump, which was masked by an impatient groan. _Just end the class, woman!_

"For your homework, don't forget to finish answering page 57 of your textbooks." The teacher wrote down the words as she spoke. "Seeing as we're done early, you are dismissed."

_Early?_ Tommy screamed in his head. _It's eight fucking minutes pass three!_

Tommy walked out of Math class— dejected, considering the boring class without Tubbo—they only have History together—and then the annoying homework. He headed towards his and Tubbo's usual meeting place—a bench under the tree near the school gates.

Even from a far, he could already spot the familiar green button-up shirt. Tubbo noticed him approaching and gave a small wave. Tommy raised his hand to wave back, but the closer he got, the clearer Tubbo's figure became.

The green shirt was not without brown spots of dirt staining it. The hand waving at him had spots of red, Tubbo's arm had a few bruises on it.

"The fuck happened?" Tommy asked.

"You know, Jeff and them," Tubbo said. "His gang found me and this happened. Got kicked around—" he raised his arm that was bruised indicating that it was what got hit—"I fell down pretty bad, so yeah." He opened both his hands showing Tommy the bleeding flesh.

"You wanna—" Tommy was cut off by Tubbo who stood up from the bench.

"Nah, the nurse is a bitch," Tubbo laughed. "Let's go to the house?"

Tommy laughed at the comment, "Yeah, yeah."

The two made their way to the abandoned house, ranting about school as one does to pass the time.

"I got an essay for English. Something about applying the lesson we learned earlier in writing about your favorite animal? I don't know," Tubbo shrugged his shoulders.

"Oh, we got that assignment last week," Tommy said as he turned the knob of the house's front door.

"Tubbo? What happened to you?" Wilbur, who was floating by, asked.

"Got into a row with some kid," he replied.

"Well, you better get those cuts cleaned," Wilbur advised.

"The bathroom still works by the way," Tommy said. Tubbo nodded and walked to the small room near the kitchen.

"How come the bathroom still have water anyway?" Tommy turned to Wilbur.

"Oh, we have our own water source. Underground water," Wilbur said. "Phil made something that allows us to get water in the bathroom from the source."

Tommy hummed, passing Wilbur and setting his school bag down on the couch.

"So, what shenanigans are you two gonna do today?" Wilbur asked.

"We're doing homework," Tommy groaned.

"If we finish early, we were planning to set up a plan to prank those guys who ganged up on me," Tubbo said as he took a seat on the chair across Tommy.

"Yeah, those bitches are gonna get what's coming to them!"

Wilbur sighed. _Should have expected that._ "What homework are you doing anyway?"

"I got fucking maths."

"I'm writing an essay about my favorite animal!" Tubbo said excitedly. "I figured that I'd do it on that tree where there's a hive."

"Bees huh?" Wilbur said. "You know what animals are the worst?"

Tommy and Tubbo raised their eyebrows, a silent prompt for Wilbur to continue.

"Anteaters. Those motherfuckers are ugly as hell," Wilbur stated.

"Oh god, don't tell me you're going on about Anteaters again Wil," Phil—who apparently was in the room with them, but made no effort to make himself visible—said.

"Jesus, Phil," Tommy said. "Don't start talking out of nowhere will you?"

Phil—still invisible—laughed at the comment, his voice sounding farther and farther away, leaving the room.

"I'm going to the bees." Tubbo grabbed a notebook and pen from his bag.

"Don't fall off!" Tommy called after the other boy.

Once Tubbo was out of sight, Tommy grabbed his textbook, a pad of paper, and a pen out of his bag. He placed them on the coffee table, and he sat on the carpet. A moment of silence passed as he tried concentrating on his assignment, but with the circumstances, that wasn't happening.

Tommy looked up from his work, "Are you just going to watch me?"

Wilbur, who was floating right across Tommy, raised an eyebrow and smirked. "Well, I got nothing better to do. Might as well."

Tommy eyed the ghost for a bit then went back to trying to solve math problems. He stumbled upon a part where he had to multiply 37 by 4. Not being the strongest at mental math, Tommy's left hand immediately started keeping track as he skip counted.

His train of thought was interrupted by Wilbur who was laughing. "Are you skip counting? You're supposed to be in secondary school aren't you?"

Tommy glared at Wilbur, "Well sorry, Mr. Mathwiz, but not everyone can do math mentally. I can't remember the shitty numbers that I have to add once I finish multiplying!"

Wilbur was taken back by the defensiveness of Tommy's voice. "Sorry," he apologized.

"You should be," Tommy huffed. "You know, Wilbur, you have to do my homework now so I'll forgive you."

Wilbur sighed. _Of course._ "I'm not doing your work for you," he stated. "But, I am willing to help."

"Good! Algebra sucks," Tommy said.

While Tommy and Wilbur work on Maths, Tubbo was seated on a branch across the beehive again.

There wasn't any particular point as to why he sat where he did. It wasn't like he had to observe them to write the essay. He just liked their buzzing. It helped him concentrate, oddly enough.

"You spelled 'pollinate' wrong."

"Holy—" If it wasn't for his amazing balance, Tubbo would have most definitely fell. "Please don't do that."

The once empty space beside him was now filled by the semi-transparent figure of Technoblade.

"To be fair, I've been visible for 5 seconds before I talked," Techno said.

Tubbo sighed and looked back at his notebook. He located the misspelled word and stared at it for a good minute before giving up. "It's the dyslexia talking."

Technoblade hummed in response, still reading through the essay. "A couple more spelling mistakes here and there, but not bad kid," he said.

Tubbo beamed at the compliment. "Will you help me?" he asked. Techno agreed and pointed out the misspelled words. Tubbo tried correcting them, getting most of them right. Those he couldn't correct, Techno helped with.

"That's about it," Techno said. "Although, word of advise, I'd change that transition on your third paragraph." He pointed at the part he was pertaining to.

Tubbo nodded and began revising it. "—losing...their stinger...would cause their death," Tubbo mumbled under his breath as he wrote the words. Stopping to think when he reached the last word.

"Hey Technoblade, you're a ghost right? " He looked at the floating body beside him.

"Yeah. I thought this was already established?"

"So you're dead?"

"Tha—that's what it means to be a ghost, yes." Techno had no clue where the conversation was going so the next question Tubbo asked him surprised him a bit.

"Do you remember how you died?"

Techno had to think about that one for a bit, but where there's a question, there's an answer. "Not really," he said.

An awkward silence.

Tubbo chuckles nervously, "Sorry, I blurted that out of nowhere."

"Nah, it's fine," Techno said. "Are you done yet?"

"Yeah. Are you heading inside too?" Tubbo hopped of the branch. Techno nodded and the two of them went to the living room. There Tommy was seated on the carpet, threatening Wilbur with a pen.

"I swear I will find a way to stab you with this damn thing!"

"Why is this my fault?"

"I was trying to write the solution!"

"So? I was just counting the seconds that was passing by!"

"Oh you know what you were doing."

"Of course I did, it isn't hard to count to sixty you know. It's not my fault you began writing what I was saying."

"You did that on purpose!"

"Ha! You managed to fall for that? What a loser."

"Don't worry big man, you just have to rewrite the—oh damn that's a long ass solution."

The four began bickering, Techno mostly just laughing at Tommy's misery while Tubbo was trying to reassure—with the occasional laughing—that everything would be fine.

The voices of them four were loud but nothing could beat the yell of an old man from upstairs.

"THIS HOUSE IS A _FUCKING_ NIGHTMARE!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> P.S. English is not my first language, and the one I learned is American English, so yeahhh. Sorry for any grammatical and/or spelling errors.
> 
> P.P.S. This is my first MCYT content, so I'm sorry if the characters seem OOC. I've only started watching them for a while. So if there are tips that you wanna share on how their characters can be portraid better, the comment section is the way to go.
> 
> Thank you for reading! Comments and suggestions are appreciated.
> 
> -LuminaStarCrest


	9. Chapter 8

Phil watched as the autumn leaves fell off the trees from the window of his bedroom on the second floor of the house. The morning was calm and quiet. The sun hasn't risen yet, and Techno and Wilbur were both still resting and regaining the energy that they had used the day before when they were helping with homework. Phil took a deep breath—although, no oxygen entered him, seeing as he _is_ a ghost. In the corner of his eye, Phil caught a blur of a familiar shade of Green and Red. He hummed as he phased himself through the floorboards, ending up in the kitchen. 

The old wooden front door made a small creak as it opened and two teenagers entered. They were whispering among themselves—though it could hardly count as whispering, it sounded more like someone who's losing their voice because they screamed too much. Tommy closed the door in a way that someone who is sneaking around would never do. The door made a small slamming sound making Tubbo hit Tommy's arm as a silent scolding.

Phil could see that the two had gotten into a hushed bickering which made him sigh. He approached the two—still invisible. "It was the wind," he hears Tommy say.

"There wasn't a single breeze," Tubbo countered. 

"Oh who cares anyway?" Tommy asked. "I doubt they'd be woken up by that. Do ghosts even sleep?"

Phil smirked, "It depends really."

His sudden appearance triggered different reactions. One let out a gasp as he jumped away from where he stood. The other repressed a shout, resulting to him squeaking as an alternative, as he dropped to the floor. Phil will let you decide who's who, and instead he made himself visible. There he floated with his arms crossed and a questioning look plastered onto his face.

"Hey Phil," Tommy greeted, dragging out the first word.

"What are you two doing here this early?" Phil asked.

"What do you mean early?" Tubbo laughed nervously, stuttering a bit. "It's a completely normal time for us to visit." 

"It's literally five in the morning," Phil said. "Shouldn't you two be asleep or getting ready for school or some shit?"

"Oh Phil, my friend," Tommy said, attempting to wrap his arm around Phil's shoulders, but instead phased through it. "My really old friend—" this made Phil sigh— "did you know that in our generation, waking up this early is considered as productive?"

"And I am sure that you know that I _did_ raise Techno and Wilbur long enough to know that children walking around alone when it's still dark is dangerous," Phil stated.

"We technically weren't alone," Tubbo muttered as he made his way to the couch, plopping down and placing his bag beside him. This earned him a stern look from the adult. 

"What I'm saying is whatever you two are planning on doing isn't worth endangering yourselves," Phil scolded. "Do your parents even know where you are?" 

A beat passed. "Well," Tommy dragged the word out, avoiding eye contact, following the other's lead and sitting down himself.

"They know that Tommy and I are with each other" Tubbo said. "Does that count?"

"Elaborate," Phil said. 

"I asked my parents if I could sleep over at Tubbo's and they agreed."

"My sister is at a friend's house and my parents had to leave at like 1 am," Tubbo explained. "So we planned to wake up after they left and sneak over here."

"Oh god, you are going to give me a heart attack," Phil said. "So you just left without anyone knowing where you were?"

"Well if you put it that way, it does sound bad," Tommy muttered.

"That's because it _is_ bad." Phil could easily gotten out a whole speech as to why what they did was dangerous, but he stopped himself. He sighed, "Please, never do that again At least tell your parents where you're really going."

"Yes Phil," the two said. 

"What _are_ you two doing here anyway?" 

"We're preparing a scheme," Tubbo said cheerfully,, completely forgetting the fact that they just got told off.

"Yeah!" Tommy laughed.

"What?" Phil asked, stunned at the excitement of the two as they announced something that they could definitely get in trouble with.

"It isn't as bad as it sounds." Tommy waved his hand dismissively . "Ease up old man, you'll get wrinkles."

"I'm a fucking ghost," Phil said. "I don't age."

"We're just filling balloons with paint," Tubbo said. "You know, for a prank."

Phil shook his head, disagreeing with that idea. "Wouldn't it be better if you two kept your records clean? I'm almost a hundred percent sure that you'd get caught." 

Tommy scoffed, " _Clean_ record? We probably have filled a whole entire page on that paper that you sign whenever you visit the discipline office." Tommy caught Phil's concern look, "It wasn't that bad, we just got into a few fights."  
  
"That—that isn't something to be proud of Tommy," Phil said. 

"Those arseholes had it coming," Tubbo muttered bitterly under his breath.   
  
Phil still heard it though. The situation was definitely concerning. Tubbo seemed like a sweet child, and Tommy—though impulsive as hell—doesn't seem to be the type to fight without provocation. "Why, exactly?" He asked. 

Tommy leaned back on the chair he was sitting on, "Just, school bullies, you know?"

Yes, Phil knows. He had to deal with Techno coming home bruised and not wanting to talk for majority of his and Wilbur's Year 10. Surprisingly enough, it wasn't Techno who was the target of the bullying. Wilbur, being the less intimidating of the two, would always be ganged up, and Technoblade—being the older by 2 minutes both in terms of Phil signing the adoption papers and actual age—couldn't just watch. 

The mere fact that Tommy and Tubbo were being bullied angered Phil. Surely he wouldn't let this slide, heck he'd even help them set it up. "How are you gonna do this then?"  
  
Tommy and Tubbo immediately perked up at Phil's sudden interest. Tubbo opened his bag and got out packs of balloons. "We're filling these up with left over paint from that time we made the house look better!" 

"Then we're taking them to school, probably gonna sneak up on them after PE or something," Tommy said. 

"That is a horrible plan," Phil said. "Teachers are bound to catch you."  
  
"Well I don't see _you_ coming up with ideas," Tommy said.

"Just bring them here then," Phil said.

"Here?" Tubbo asked, "In the house?"  
  
Phil shook his head, "By the forest entrance should be enough."

"Are you seriously helping us?" Tommy asked, excitedly.

"Yeah mate," Phil said. "Arseholes shouldn't be tolerated."

Tommy and Tubbo left to get the paint from the basement beaming. Phil was already concentrating his energy so that when they come back, he'd be tangible enough to hold things. 

"You should really tell the teachers or your parents about this though," Phil said as he tied the end of another balloon that was heavy with paint.

"We did tell the teachers though." Tubbo poured another batch inside the balloon Tommy was holding open. "it didn't work 'cause the school system is fucked."

"We told our parents after that," Tommy said. "They reported it, but again, school system is shit." He handed the balloon to Phil once Tubbo finished filling it up.

Phil hummed. "Is that the last of it?" He asked, placing the balloon that he tied up on the pile. 

"Yup, out of paint." Tubbo showed them the empty can.

"It's well pass 6:30," Phil said, reading the wall clock which battery has been replaced by Tubbo. "You best off get going, you know the way out?" He asked.

"No, but we have a map," Tommy smirked showing off the map that they had gotten from Phil's room the first time they stumbled upon the house.

"Bye Phil," Tubbo waved.

Phil waved back and watched them retreat. Tubbo stumbling over a tree root as he faced front, and Tommy immediately laughing at the other despite barely seeing it happen. Phil couldn't help but shake his head fondly. It's barely even a week and he was already attached to two random kids that had turned up at his house. _Then again, I'd done it before._ Phil glanced at the family picture that he had re-placed by the entrance and smiled. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright! Dadza time since Wil and Techno had their moment last chapter. 
> 
> Up next is the prank and a new character that you, most likely, are familiar with.


	10. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for the kudos and comments ❤️ I'm not sure of the formatting here. Hopefully I hadn't missed any 'thoughts' lines.

Just across the football field was Jeff and his usual gang. They just finished practicing for an upcoming game. "Target spotted," Tubbo whispered, his hand raised to his right ear, holding his wireless earphone like a secret agent. 

"Shall we fuck 'em up?" Tommy asked, doing the same secret agent thing as Tubbo with his left hand. You know, like the dorks that they are. They weren't even far from each other. They were literally stood side by side, crouched under the bleachers. 

"Let's go!" Tubbo and Tommy stood up from their hiding spot and tried to walk across the field inconspicuously, making sure that Jeff could see them. The muscled boy of course smirked and began walking their way.

"You have a lot of nerve walking here," Jeff said, his minions behind him.

"Oh fuck off," Tommy said, "You don't own the field arsehole."

"If you're the best player, you can own anything."

"You aren't the best player then," Tubbo huffed out a laugh, "You know, since you don't even own basic human decency." Once the comment left Tubbo's mouth, the football captain's entire demeanor went dark. 

"Ohhhhhh," Tommy cheered. "Get owned bitch!" He then grabbed Tubbo's wrist and dragged him along, running.

"What are you standing there for?" They hear Jeff yell. "Go corner them!"

Tubbo laughed as they ran towards the school gates. "I can't believe I actually said that."

"Yeah, well we better hurry if we want to get away with it," Tommy said, glancing behind them, Jeff's goons inching nearer.

Tommy and Tubbo reached the gates and were about to turn right towards the forest, but were immediately blocked by three of Jeff's mates. "Ahh shit," Tommy cursed. "Go around, go around." The two of them turned left instead, doing a detour, but still planning to lead the group chasing them to the forest.

"Aw crap. It's a red light." Tubbo could see the cars starting to zoom across the pedestrian lane to his right, making it impossible to turn right. They couldn't stop and wait for the light to turn green or else they'd get caught.

"Straight, go straight," Tommy announced. "We'll take a right by that huge school at the end of the road."

Jeff's voice was becoming clearer, meaning he was gaining at them. Tommy and Tubbo reached said end of the road and found students wearing uniforms pouring out of the school, the ringing of the school bell still piercing through the air. 

Lucky for them, they could easily slip through. Jeff and the others, not so much. Though, that didn't stop them from eventually running into someone. Tubbo being the shorter one, fell down to the ground, while Tommy stumbled but managed to gain his balance again. The tall boy wearing a black and white mask that they had bumped into dropped some of his things. 

"Oh, sorry," Tubbo apologized. He gathered the other boy's stuff as he stood up, and handed it over to him.

"It's fine," the boy said, taking the books back.

"We have to go!" Tommy said, his attention focused on their chasers. He grabbed the other's wrist instinctively and dragged them along.

"Hey hold on—" the boy tried prying his wrist away and protesting, but he was ignored by the two other boys—"okay, I guess I'm running," he said, following their lead.

They managed to redirect the chase towards the forest after loads of detours ad shortcuts—honestly they're kind of amazed that Jeff and his goons haven't given up, they must have really pissed them off. From afar, Tubbo could see Phil, Wilbur and Techno floating by the entrance. They gave him a smile and wave. Tubbo smiled back and turned to tell Tommy something, but that message was immediately changed.

"Why are you following us?" Tubbo asked the boy who was running behind Tommy. 

"You tell me!" he said. "I was dragged along and when he—" the boy pointed to Tommy—"finally let go of my wrist, I noticed those guys—" he gestured his head towards the people chasing them—"and immediately got intimidated so I just ran."

Tommy bursts out laughing, "Sucks to suck I guess."

"Sucks to—you brought me into this!"

"Hide, hide,hide," Tubbo said as they reached the trees. He gave a thumbs up at the three ghosts as he crouched under a tree hallow. Tommy pushed the boy towards Tubbo's direction making the boy hide under the same tree. Which made sense because if he hid with Tommy, it would be too cramped. 

From their respective hiding spots, Tommy and Tubbo made the effort to peak at what the ghosts have came up with. They didn't really tell them their plan, just that they'd handle it. Jeff and them finally reached the forest. 

"Oh so you're hiding now huh?" Jeff yelled. "Come out here you fu—" he didn't even manage to complete his sentence when a balloon hit his face, splattering black paint all over himself. "What the fuck."

A barrage of balloons came, this time Tommy could see Techno dumping a bucket of balloons down on the bullies. "Where the fuck is this paint from!" From that statement, Tommy concluded that nothing was visible to Jeff or any of his goons. _I guess that explains the strange glow around the buckets and balloons._

Wil and Phil were also doing their parts and were circling the whole group, throwing the balloons one by one in a rhythmic pattern, eventually managing to hit every single member, drowning them in various colored paint.

Tommy was trying to stop himself from laughing as he watched the group stumble around, bumping into each other because they could barely see. Some slipping on the paint on the ground, Jeff in particular managed to land face floor to the ground. The whole scene was chaotic, filled with screams and confused yelling. The balloons were still coming, but they obviously had enough. Jeff's voice overpowered the others', "Get back! Move you fucking morons!" He pushed some of them out of the way to get out of the paint barrage.

"Alright! It's clear!" Phil yelled. 

Tommy got out of hiding first and was laughing his head off. "That was so cool!" he said. 

"Yeah well, I did not expect that to be so tiring," Phil said. "Making things invisible takes a lot of energy. I think I'll head back now."

"That's 'cause you're old Phil," Tommy said. 

Phil groaned, "I'm not that old!" He yelled, already invisible and presumably leaving since his voice was getting more quiet.

"What was that?" The boy asked loudly as he got out of the tree hollow after Tubbo did, catching Tommy's attention.

Techno laughed, "Good luck explaining all that," he said before disappearing into the house.

"Ah shit I forgot," Tommy whispered. "Can he see you?" He asked Wilbur who was floating closest to him. Wilbur shook his head no.

"We're master pranksters you know," Tubbo said.

"Yeah, all part of an elaborate scheme," Tommy added.

"Oh," the boy said. "Cool, I couldn't even see where the paint was coming from."

"Kind of a god," Tommy shrugged his shoulders.

Tubbo shook his head with a sigh. "Sorry for dragging you into all this, uhh..." he trailed off, not really knowing the other's name.

"Ranboo," the boy supplied. "And it's fine. Everything's fine."

"Yeah!" Tubbo smiled. Now that they weren't panicked, he could finally take a good look at Ranboo. "Woah! Why is your hair white?"

"Tubbo, Tubbo," Tommy let out a loud laugh. "You don't just ask people why they have white hair!" 

"Yeah, I get asked that a lot," Ranboo said, raising his hand up to his nape, a bit embarrassed about the situation. "My adoptive brother played a welcome to the family prank on me and this—" he pointed to his hair—"is what I get." 

"It looks nice though," Tubbo complimented. "Especially with the mask." 

"Yeah, my biological sister made the mask so I wouldn't feel too bad about my hair," Ranboo said. "But the white had really grown on me and I have refused to dye it back." 

Tommy watched Ranboo and Tubbo converse for a moment before asking, "Why do you say adoptive and biologocal? Isn't it the same thing?" 

Ranboo shifted his weight from one foot to the other and proceeded to refuse making any eye contact. "I've—I've been taught by my old caretakers to learn proper labels when introducing them. It just stuck, I guess?" 

Tubbo nudged Tommy with his elbow, "Sorry if that was uncomfortable. Tommy's just an idiot." 

Before Tommy could protest, Ranboo had began talking. "Oh, I got a message from my sister to be home soon. It was nice meeting you two." 

"Bye Ranboo." Tommy waved. 

"Hope to bump into you again!" Tubbo said. "Well, that was interesting." He turned around, about to head into the forest to get to the house but stumbled backwards. 

"Wilbur! I didn't know you were still here." 

"Never left," Wilbur said. "Which is why _I'm_ the best ghost there is." This just earned blank stares from the two teens.

"Anyways, intresting friend that was," Wilbur said at tempting to change the subject. "Although, what I find strange is his clothes."

"It's a school uniform," Tubbo stated. "What about it?"

"I don't know. It seems familiar for some reason."

"That's 'cause you used to wear the same uniform idiot," Tommy said. "You went to the same fancy private school."

"Do you not remember?" Tubbo asked.

"Not really, no," Wilbur said. "I mean I remember my life before I died, it's just some parts are blanked off or blurry."

"Do you remember how you died?" Tommy asked.

Wilbur shook his head, "None of us do."

Tommy hummed. "Well, you wanna try remembering shit?" He started making his way towards the house. 

"Ohh, yeah! We can look at old photo albums," Tubbo said, following Tommy. 

"We already tried to, but nothing really happened," Wilbur reasoned but obliged anyway.

"It's worth to try again," Tubbo said. "Maybe you just need alive people to help."

"Yeah, but what I'm looking forward to is teen Wilbur pictures," Tommy said. "Oh, yes. Awkward puberty Wil."

"You know what?" Wilbur began, "I have the sudden urge to burn shit." He flew towards thw house faster.

"No—no—hey Wil! Wilbur, no!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eyyy new character Ranboo! I believe that you guys already have an idea who his siblings are but I'm not gonna say anything just in case.


	11. Chapter 10

"I swear, if you as much as fucking take another step forward, you are dead to me!" Tommy threatened.

"Am I supposed to be scared?" Wilbur asked. "You are talking to a literal ghost."

"Just give me back the vlog gun, man," Tommy whined.

"Vlog gun?" Wilbur raised an eyebrow, "You gonna vlog now Tommy? Are you a vlogger?"

Tommy lunged forward, hand almost reaching the said toy, but immediately failed when it suddenly disappeared from sight—along with Wilbur—with a loud popping sound. "Oh fuck you Wil!" 

Not even moments later, the same popping noise echoed through the living room and Wilbur reappeared. "I will never get used to teleporting," Wilbur complained.

"You can teleport?" Tommy tilted his head.

"Within the forest, yeah."   
  
"Where'd the vlog gun go?" Tommy circled Wilbur, trying to find the item.

"Oh, I hid that."  
  
"Wha—Why? Why?" 

"It's just around the forest somewhere," Wilbur said. "If you look for it now, I bet you'll find it before sunset.

"You're prick and I fucking hate you," Tommy stated with a blank, unamused face before heading out of the house to begin the search. Wilbur followed the boy out. 

"Do I at least get a clue, this forest is huge," Tommy asked.

Wilbur hummed, "I guess so. It's hidden underwater."  
  
"So like in a lake or some shit?" Wilbur shrugged his shoulders, not wanting to give an answer. Tommy groaned in annoyance, "Fine, have it your way."

Tommy began walking around, no actual direction in mind. He ducked under trees, and climb over uneven soil. Kicked around the different colored leaves on the ground. "I'm bored," he announced, making Wilbur chuckle.

"It hasn't even been ten minutes Tommy," Wilbur said.

"Well what do you want me to do? I'm wandering around here 'cause you woke up and chose to be a dickhead."

"Hey, you were the one who came to the house, kicked open the door then proceeded to immediately point the vlog gun at me yelling ''ey bitch'," Wilbur reasoned. "I say this is fair."

"Am I at least going the right way?" Tommy stopped walking and turned to Wilbur.

"Oh, no. You went towards the complete opposite direction," Wilbur said as he attempted to hide a snicker.

"Why would you not tell me that sooner?" Tommy yelled, pointing an accusing finger at the ghost.  
  
"Think of this as a challenge," Wilbur said. "I'm not just gonna tell you everything tight off the bat." Tommy glared at him. "What? Can Tommy Innit not handle a simple task?"

Tommy straightened up at the accusation. "'course I can. Big man Tommy Innit can do anything," he stated before running towards the right direction.

Tommy had ran straight, looking to his left and right at any given moment as to not accidentally walk past the body of water he was looking for. Eventually deciding that staying on the ground is a horrible idea, he began to climb a tree.

"Careful," Wilbur said as he watched the teenage boy's left foot slip, but manage to step on a sturdier surface. 

"This would be easier if there's some sort of tower around here," Tommy mumbled as he pulled himself up another branch. "You know what? Maybe I'll make one myself."

"You're just shit at climbing," Wilbur commented. "Why would anyone want a tower? No one's gonna use it."

"Intimidation, bitch," Tommy said. He balanced himself on the highest branch and carefully stood up. It was a nice view. You can see the top of the trees, the mountains at the distance, and the sun shinning brightly, but was covered by the clouds so it wasn't too hot.

"The forest is scary enough. I doubt anyone would be intimidated by you're tower," Wilbur said.

"Shut up for a moment will ya," Tommy waved a hand dismissively towards Wilbur. "I'm trying to look." His blue eyes scanned the area, they brightened up as they spotted a shade of blue at a distance. "Oh you are about to regret mocking me," Tommy smirked as he climbed down the tree, jumping off the branch once he was low enough. 

Wilbur watched as the boy ran towards the direction of the pond, "So you have," he said before floating forward, quickly passing Tommy.

"Wilbur! Wilbur don't you dare change the hiding spot!" Tommy tried to chase after the ghost, but he was no match to a ghost teleporting. Tommy slowed his pace, deciding that Wilbur was most likely there already. He was so used to looking left and right that he continued to do so despite knowing where the pond was. How he wished he never did that.

In the corner of his eye, Tommy caught sight of a cave. He probably shouldn't stray, but his curiosity got the better of him. The cave looked like it went in deep. Ducking under the entrance, Tommy walked inside. 

"Cool, I can probably hoard shit in here," Tommy said to himself. The place looked sturdy, bits of the cave's ceiling wasn't constantly falling. One downside though. 

Tommy froze when he reached the end of the cave. In front, on the floor was small articles of clothing like scarves and accessories. The wall was splattered with red. _Blood._ It was dry meaning whatever happened, it happened long ago, but that didn't make things less terrifying. Tommy took a couple of shaky step backwards before managing to sprint out of the cave.

Wilbur, who was still trying to find a place to hide the vlog gun, caught sight of a blur of white and red pass by. "Tommy?" Wilbur called out. 

"Wilbur?" Tommy frantically looked for the ghost's floating figure, spotting him at the edge of the pond. "We—we have to go, we have to go Wil." Tommy didn't wait for a reply as he ran towards the first direction that his body instinctively took.

It was obvious that something was wrong, Wilbur wondered what got Tommy this panicked. "Tommy," he said, trying to catch the younger's attention. "Tommy," he repeated, but the boy wasn't listening to him. Instead, Tommy proceeded to mumble to himself.

"Tommy you have to cal—"

"Wil, I don't want to get haunted down or some shit okay?" Tommy yelled, finally stopping to face the other.

Wilbur dropped the vlog gun and focused his energy, allowing himself to be more tangible. Enough to interact with humans. He placed his hands on Tommy's shoulders. "Tommy, I need you to breath alright?" 

"I'm breathing just fine." Tommy tried to wiggle his way out of Wilbur's hold, but Wilbur wouldn't budge. "We have to go—"  
  
"Tommy, you aren't even going the right way. You need to breathe and stay calm or else you're gonna get yourself lost," Wilbur firmly said. 

It must have gotten through Tommy, as the boy stopped struggling and took a deep breath. "That's it," Wilbur said. "In...and out." Once Tommy was no longer hyperventilating, Wilbur withdraw his hold on the boy.

"What happened?" Wilbur asked.

"Near the pond...there—there was this cave right?" Tommy started. Wilbur noticed the boy twisting his fingers with his other hand as he told him the story, which prompted him into holding onto both the younger's hand as he continued to talk. "At first I thought it was cool and shit, but when I got to the end," Tommy gulped, and let out a breath, "There was blood everywhere Wil, blood," he emphasized.

"Are you sure it's blood?" Wilbur asked. He wasn't doubting him, no. Tommy's reaction fit the situation if it were the case. He just wanted to make sure Tommy knew what he was saying.

"Well it was no way in hell paint!"

"Alright, okay," Wilbur said. "Animal blood?"

"There were human stuff lying around in the cave," Tommy said.

"Maybe it was just hunters," Wilbur concluded. "I remember there being a couple of the, wandering around this forest when I was younger." It wasn't a lie, but it probably isn't the truth either.

Tommy knew that what Wil told him was just a bullshit excuse, but for some reason, he gravitated towards false security. "Yeah, probably," Tommy said. "Yeah, that makes sense." _No it doesn't._ "How about we go back to the house now? I'm beat." 

"Okay, here." Wilbur gabbed the vlog gun from the ground an handed it to the boy. 

"Thanks," Tommy muttered, accepting the toy. "Do you know the way back?"

Wilbur looked at his surroundings, "No clue. You ran around randomly that I lost track."

Tommy looked at the ghost, "How the fuck am I supposed to go back?"

"You want me to get Techno?" Wilbur asked. "That guy knows this forest like the back of his hand."

Tommy grumbled, "Not the 'ooman GPS. Have you seen that guy laugh at my 'incompetent' math skills?" Tommy made air quotes as he spoke. "He'd loose his head if he found out that I got lost and shit."

"Well, what do you suppose we do?"  
  
"Can't you just teleport me to the house or something?"  
  
Wilbur sighed, "It isn't that easy Toms. I can't just bring you with me."

"Why not?" He whined.

"Because we'll be entering the Ghost Realm."

"Ohh, ghost realm."

"Yes," Wilbur sighed. "So, the way that teleportation works is that we ghosts get transported to the Ghost Realm. There we go to a designated area where we can see all the places we are bound to."

"Bound to?"  
  
"Yes, that's why ghosts exist, we're still bound to things here on earth," Wilbur said. "I think. That was what they said in court."

"Court?" Tommy asked, baffled. "What do you mean court?"  
  
"We're going off topic here," Wilbur said. 

"Well don't mention shit like Ghost court and we won't go off track."

"Anyway," Wilbur brushed off the comment. "Basically, I'm bound to a couple of places, the forest being a general area, meaning unless the place was specific, I can't teleport there. My specific bounds are at the house and the lake."

"Okay, why can't I go there?"

"Well, for one, you aren't dead," Wilbur said. "And even if you were able to pass to the Ghost Realm, I'm not sure if you will be able to do the bounded teleportation bit, because, again, you're not dead. You're not bound anywhere."

Tommy stared at Wilbur as he tried to process the information. "So, what you;re saying is that I can't go all ghost-y?"

Wilbur sighed, and shook his head fondly at Tommy being a dorky idiot "Yes, you can't go all ghost-y."

"Well shit." Tommy glared at the ground, "Do we have to call him?" He raised his head slightly.

"If you don't want to spend the night out here, then yes."

Tommy groaned, "Fine," he said, arms crossed across his chest.

"Great. He can find this area with even the smallest description." Wilbur said. "I won't be able to get back to you, but just wait for Techno okay?" And with a pop, Wilbur disappeared

 _Oh, that's right. Wilbur's bound to the lake, not here._ Tommy though. _And he didn't know how to get here, so he won't be able to find me again._ He glanced at his surroundings _. I'm alone._ Tommy didn't want to think about that so he distracted himself by playing with his vlog gun. 

He wouldn't admit it but he was so relieved when he heard the pink haired man's familiar voice. "What a loser, can't even find his way home."

On second thought...

"Oh shut it and lead the way you arsehole!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wooo new chapter! Thank you for all the reads, comments, and kudos! Sorry for the inconsistent updates. School's starting up again, so I'll be busy with school work and all that. Anyway, word of advice, I wouldn't brush off that cave scene like Tommy did if I were you.


	12. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> New chapter here! Thank you for all the reads, comments and kudos ❤

Phil returned to the house from his little walk around the forest to find the place empty. It was...odd per say. Sure, Wilbur leaving for the Ghost Realm to talk to a few friends that he made after he died, and Techno doing his own thing in the forest, he was used to. But Tommy and Tubbo not being around? Especially when it's Saturday? It was weird. 

Of course, they did have a reason as to why they couldn't come today. Tubbo had a family thing planned, something about attending a baking workshop. Tommy was—well, Tommy was just grounded. Phil didn't know the details as to why, but Tommy mentioned something about accidentally leaving the stove on. 

The two teenagers had been hanging around their house for almost a month now, and it really shows. Phil entered the living room to be met by the mess from yesterday. There were a bunch of art materials—ranging from pencils to glitters—on the floor. _That carpet has seen better days._ He thought as he eyed the orange, purple and black glitters sprinkled all over it. He should really force those two to clean up after themselves whenever they hang around there. 

Phil concentrated his energy to make himself tangible enough to pick up the stuff off the floor and organized it on the kitchen table. The last bits left in the living room was the actual product of their little "art project". It was a punishment given to the two by a teacher—who, apparently, was the one supposed to do these posters. Posters for what? Well from what Phil could work out, a Halloween event? He wasn't sure, it was a shitty poster. But yeah, the tiny pumpkins on the paper basically confirmed it.

After arranging the posters up on the kitchen table, Phil thought he could do his own thing, but the slightly opened cupboard door was bothering him. _This was a mistake._ Phil watched the stacks of snacks fall from the cupboard. He sighed, _Guess I have to deal with this now._ Phil went to open the cupboard next door—praying that there would still be space for the other food. 

It was empty.

"Did those two just took one look at the cupboard and said 'let's fit them all in one even though there's almost five other places we could put it?'" Phil said to himself.  
  
"They said 'seven other places', but that's close enough." Phil turned around to find Techno leaning at the kitchen entrance. 

"You watched and allowed them to do something this dumb?" Phil asked.

"Hey, they were always dumb, that is not my problem," Techno said. "Besides, you and Wilbur were the ones who wanted to keep them."  
  
Phil laughed, "Why are you asking that as if they were some sort of stray dogs?" 

"Might as well be," Techno said. "I mean look at this place, Phil. They cleaned it up but went ahead and messed it up again."

"Oh come on Techno," Phil said as he crouched down and started to sort the snacks out."You know you _at least_ don't hate having those two around."

Techno huffed, "At least," he agreed.

"Hello friends!" A cheery echo-y voice greeted.

"Ah shit." Techno jumped lightly as Wilbur appeared beside him out of nowhere. "Will you stop doing that?"  
  
"What? Appearing out of nowhere?" Wilbur tilted his head.

"Yes," Techno said. "Stop doing the voice too. Phil might find it adorable, but it's annoyin'. Especially with that echo."

"Aww Techno." Wilbur reverted to his normal voice. "What's the point of having a 'ghost voice' when you aren't gonna use it?"

Techno stared at Wilbur with an annoyed face. Their little banter was interrupted by Phil who let out a hearty laugh. "I missed hearing you two have a friendly banter. Nowadays you only seem to fight with Tommy or Tubbo."

"Tubbo, Tubbo is tolerable enough to not start a quarrel with," Techno said. "Tommy though..."

"He's a little gremlin man child," Wilbur continued. "Annoying by nature, but eh, he grows on you."

"You're too attached to that kid," Techno said.

"Hey, I'm not the only one playing favorites," Wilbur countered. "I've seen your little reading sessions with Tubbo." 

"So, Phil," Techno tried dodging the subject.

"You know, I could really use some help to tidy up a bit," Phil said. "I saw a bunch of stuff up stairs by the little area near the hallway window."

"Oh, that's Tommy's stash?" Wilbur said.  
  
"Stash?" Phil stopped what he was doing and faced the two.

"Yeah, he keeps hoarding shit up there," Wilbur said.

"I saw that area filled with my things," Techno said. "Is Tommy hoarding my stuff?"

"Pretty much," Wilbur said. "He really likes them. Especially that little pillow of yours when we were children."

"Which one?" Techno raised an eyebrow.

"The yellow one, the one shaped like an apple."

"Oh. That."

"Well, what do you suppose we do?" Phil asked.

"We probably should just let it be," Wilbur said. "It's a little habit of his. I mean have you seen his bag? He has a bunch of useless shit in there. Says he could probably use it at some point."

"Alright, well someone has to do some yard work then," Phil said. 

"By yard, do you mean the one where the bees are?" Techno asked.

"Yeah?"  
  
"No can do," Techno and Wilbur said in chorus.

"What?" Phil made a face. "Why?"  
  
"Tubbo doesn't allow us near the bees," Techno said.   
  
" I wonder who's fault that is?" Wilbur smirked.

"You fire a firework near the bees once and you get banned from your own backyard," Techno grunted.

Phil sighs. Yup, another day filled with Tommy and Tubbo. The boys weren't even present and yet, they managed to leave their mark on the place in a short amount of time. "You know what?" Phil asked, standing up from his previous crouching position. "You two deal with all these snacks," he said and looked at the living room with a pained face. "I'll try to get rid of the glitter on the carpet." 

"He really just left us in here with chores didn't he?" Wilbur asked as the two of them watched Phil float out of the kitchen.

Techno sighed, "Let's just get this over with."  
  
The two started organizing the packs of food, Techno now regretting letting Tommy and Tubbo do their thing.

"Hey Techno," Wilbur called, making him turn to the younger. 

His face was immediately met with a bag of chips, which went on to phase through his head. Techno turned away from Wilbur. "This is why Phil doesn't like you."

"Pfff, Phil loves me," Wilbur claimed. "HEY PHIL! WHO'S YOUR FAVORITE CHILD?"  
  
Phil appeared by the kitchen entrance, "Why are you asking?"  
  
"Oh, he didn't deny it," Techno commented.

"I already told you two, I have no fav—"

"Bullshit," the two said.

"Also, it's between the four of us now," Wilbur added.

"Even if there's more of you. I have no—"  
  
"Just tell us Phil," Techno said. "I'd get bored of this, but you know Wilbur won't let you off the hook."

"Fine." Phil said, catching the two's attention, Techno's was a little bit more subtle than Wilbur's. "You really want an answer," Phil hummed as if to think. "You know, I really like that black and white haired kid that Tommy and Tubbo accidentally dragged over."

"Yeah, I'm outta here." Techno proceeded to phase through the ceiling, straight up to his old room.

"Fuck you Phil!" Wilbur said as he floated backwards, retreating through the wall.

Phil, of course, let out a laugh. "You asked!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Before anything I just wanted to tell you guys a little behind the scenes of writing because I found it amusing. You know how I basically said that the cave scene was important last chapter? That was the purpose of Chapter 10, to show the cave, but I had no idea how I was going to do it. But I was motivate to write, so I sat down and stared at my laptop for five minutes before just saying "You know what? Let's just start the chapter off with a classic." The classic turned out to be Tommy cursing someone out and everything else just followed that. That boy be inspirational. o7
> 
> Anyway, a little chapter with just the ghost 'cause why not, they deserve time together.
> 
> Next chapter, two familiar characters will be showing up!


	13. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all the reads, comments, and kudos ❤ I am glad that you guys are enjoying this fic!

Tubbo walked up to his best friend's house's front door and knocked. The door opened revealing Tommy's mother. "Oh, Tubbo, here to get Tommy?" She asked. "Come in, you know where his room is."

"Thank you Mrs. Innit," Tubbo said before heading upstairs. "Heyo," he greeted, entering the other's room without knocking. Tubbo stared at Tommy for a moment before he burst out laughing.

"What—What the hell man?" Tubbo wiped a few stray tears he got from laughing. "You're going to the Halloween event like that?"

Tommy was stood in the middle of the room, a white sheet hanging over him.

"I forgot about the fucking event alright?" Tommy yelled.

"The sheet doesn't even have eye holes!"

"It was last minute," Tommy removed the sheet from himself. "I only remembered after you messaged me that you were coming over like 7 minutes ago."

"How?" Tubbo asked in an exasperated tone. "We made posters for this. We hung those posters. You literally had a week to prepare a costume."

"Yeah, well what are _you_ supposed to be?"

"I'm a bee!" Tubbo was wearing a black and yellow sweater, black trousers, and small wings. 

Tommy stared at him, face kept unamused. "Of course you are," he sighed. "What's with the fencing sword?"

"It's my stinger." Tubbo proceeded to poke Tommy with the sword as he laughed.

"Okay okay, I get it," Tommy said, avoiding the sword. "You know a bee dies after stinging someone. You should be dead now." 

"I'm built different."

Tommy stared at Tubbo, his face morphing into one that looks like he's thinking, "Where are your antennas?" He asked, opting to ignore the last comment, as he pointed at the shorter's head.

"I don't really know," Tubbo said. "I think my sister have it."

"Oh, you're babysitting today aren't you?" Tommy asked.

"Barely," Tubbo shook his head. "Lani's old enough to do her own thing. I'm sticking close just in case." Tubbo glanced at the digital clock by Tommy's bed, 5:30. "That reminds me, we have to go. She's at her friend's house."

"Yeah, I'm not wearing this shit until I actually have to." Tommy folded the sheet and brought it with him as the two of them went back downstairs. "Mum! Tubbo and I are gonna go!"

"Be back before 10 pm!"

It was about a ten minute walk from Tommy's to their destination. When they got there Tubbo knocked on the door, which was opened by a blond girl wearing a red jacket.

"Hi! Is Lani here?" Tubbo asked.

"Oh, hello!" Lani popped up from behind the other girl.  
  
"Is this your brother?" The girl asked.

"Yup, Tubbo and his friend Tommy," Lani said. "Guys this is Drista." 

"'sup." Drista raised her left hand and gave a small wave.

"Drista," Tommy started. "Sounds like a name I'd give someone."

"Yeah, definitely," Tubbo agreed.

"...What?"  
  
Lani leaned towards Drista's ear and whispered, "I'd ignore them if I were you."

"Are you two leaving already?" A woman—who they assumed was Drista's mother—appeared, walking down the stairs.

"Yeah, my brother's here," Lani said.   
  
"Oh isn't this cute." She grabbed her phone from her pocket, "Why don't you four pose for a picture." Definitely a mother.  
  
Tommy was forced to put on his white sheet, which made Drista laugh. "You look so bad," she commented.

"You think I don't fucking know that?" Tommy stared at the blankness of the sheet as the flash from Drista's mother's camera went off.

"So cute. We have a ghost, a bee." Her eyes passed Tommy and Tubbo. "A pikachu," she giggled as Lani made a peace sign with her hands while in a pikachu onesie. "And...sweetheart, what are you supposed to be?" She asked Drista who was wearing a black shirt, a denim overall, a red jacket, and a mask with a smile. 

"A serial killer." Drista raised a fake ax that she pulled out from nowhere.

"...That's nice sweetie." Drista's mother turned to the other three, "You four run along now and be safe alright?"

They said their goodbyes before departing from the house. "Hey Lani, you wouldn't happen to have my antennas do you?"

"No? I haven't seen it since that one time you said you'd be showing it to your friends."

Tubbo smacked his forehead before turning to Tommy, "I think I left it at the house."

"That wouldn't be a problem would it?" Drista asked. "I mean you live five minutes from my place."

"I meant a different house," Tubbo said.

"The abandoned one you two use as a base?" Lani asked.

"Are we really bringing them there?" Tommy asked.

"Well we can't just leave them on their own," Tubbo said.

After minutes of convincing, Tommy finally agreed. They now find themselves walking through the forest. Tubbo was holding the map, his phone flashlight making it possible to actually see it.

"You guys go through this creepy forest everyday?" Drista asked.

"Why? You scared?" Tommy asked, a smirk plastered on his, now not covered, face. "Aren't you supposed to be a serial killer?"

"Yeah. Aren't you supposed to be a ghost?" Drista raised her ax and pointed it at Tommy. "Maybe you'd like to die again?"  
  
"Will you two stop bickering, I can't see." 

The three other teens burst out laughing. "How—how are those two things related?" Lani asked.

"I meant, you're too loud that I—my brain can't concentrate on finding the way," Tubbo defended himself.

"Tubbo moment right there," Tommy said, completely ignoring the other male's protests.

"Is that the house?" Drista pointed to the right where a wooded wall was visible.

"Yeah, that's it!"

They all rushed towards it, Drista falling behind a bit, before she stopped completely. Tommy noticed that Drista wasn't with them and turned back. There he saw Drista turned around whispering—like she was talking to someone. "Hey, Drista!" Tommy called the girl. "Why'd you stop?"

Drista turned to face Tommy hastily, "Oh...uhh, I saw...I saw a squirrel!" Tommy gave her a look. "I really like squirrels."

Tommy shrugged his shoulders. "Hey man, I'm not gonna judge," he said. "Just, come on, you _don't_ wanna get lost here."

Drista followed Tommy into the abandoned house. "Isn't this like trespassing?" 

_Not if the owners are allowing you to hang around._ Tommy thought. "Nah, its abandoned. Who's gonna tell on us?"

"If you say so," Drista said before she took a seat on the couch beside Lani. 

"I'm gonna go and look for the antenna upstairs," Tubbo announced.

"I'll come with. You two don't wander off," Tommy stated.

Up the stairs, Phil and Wilbur was floating at the hallway. "Why are there two more children in the living room?" Phil asked.

"That's Lani and Drista, my sister and her friend," Tubbo said. "Hey Phil, did you see an antenna around here?"  
  
Phil thought about it for a moment, "Oh, yeah I have actually. Are you going as a bee?" 

"Yeah! I think I left it here when I brought it over." Tubbo followed Phil, walking away from Tommy and Wilbur.

"Well, what are you supposed to be, Tommy?" Wilbur asked.

"Take a guess, big man."  
  
Wilbur looked at the white sheet that Tommy was holding before breaking into a laugh. "You—You're going as a shitty ghost?"  
  
"I have no choice at this point!" Tommy unfolded the sheet and showed it to Wilbur. "Look at this shit! Doesn't even have fucking eye holes. It don't got no holes for them eyes Wilbur!"

Wilbur chuckled, "Tell you what, get scissors from the kitchen and meet me at Techno's room."

Tommy didn't question it and headed downstairs. Lani was still on the couch playing on her phone. Drista was by the entrance, talking to herself again. Now _that_ he would question, but he had something going on so he ignored it. He grabbed the scissors and headed to Techno's room.

Wilbur started cutting holes for the eyes, and he snipped the ends of the sheet so it would have a more tattered look. "There, looks more Halloween-y," Wilbur said. 

"Can I wear it?" Tommy asked. 

"Not yet." Wilbur attached some hairpins on the inside part of the sheet "These are Techno's special hairpins for when he has a play. They stick to anything easily so that any head props could be used without it falling." Wilbur threw the sheet over Tommy, his hands trying to attach the hairpins to Tommy's hair. 

"Tubbo's a bee, what's the other one going as?" Techno appeared at the door.

"A ghost, apparently—Tommy stop moving."

"You're pulling on my hair! What do you expect me to do?"

"There are two girls in the living room and one of them looks like a psychopath with a mask," Techno commented.

"Might be one," Tommy said. "She keeps talking to herself."

Tommy's comment sent alarms in Wilbur's brain. He looked at Techno, "Hey, do you feel it too?"

"Yeah," Techno said. "But it's fine. I know who it is."

"Are you two gonna stop talking cryptically and shit? What are you talking about?"

"Hush child, it is nothing of your concern." Wilbur proceeded fixing Tommy's costume.

"Ow! Bitch that hurt!"

"Tommy, I found them!" He hears Tubbo say. "Are you almost done with your thing? The event starts in 20 minutes." Tubbo peeked from the door. "Oh hey, you look like an actual ghost now."

"Yeah, thanks Wilbur," Tommy said in a low voice, not wanting Wilbur to actually hear him. 

Too bad though. "Aww Tommy."

"Shut up!"

With that, Wilbur and Techno watched the four teens leave for the Halloween event. Techno eyed them closely and caught a glimpse of a blurry green glow floating close to the girl with a smile-y mask. 

_They'll be fine._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's nowhere near Halloween but I don't care, have an update. We have sisters this chapter!! 
> 
> Next chapter will be more glimpses about the ghosts!


	14. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> !!PLEASE READ!!
> 
> So, I am more used to shenanigan induced, character dynamic exploration types of oneshots/drabbles. This is my first story with an actual plot, and this chapter I was going for a more serious tone...I think? I'm not really sure. SO PLEASE LEAVE YOUR THOUGHTS ABOUT THE CHAPTER! I don't think I write serious moments that well so if you have suggestions please feel free to tell me. Also, if there are parts that are confusing, ask away, I will try to clear the confusions. 
> 
> WARNING: Talks about death and afterlife(?)

Technoblade watched the door to the house open and the two teenagers walked in, seemingly dejected for some reason. Tommy slumped into the couch while Tubbo was almost literally dragging himself towards the living room. "Should I even ask?" Techno said as he continued to float in the middle of the room.

"We're just really tired man," Tubbo yawned, finally reaching his seat. "The Halloween event last night took a lot of energy, not to mention we had classes earlier."

"I could really use a nap," Tommy said burying his head into one of the throw pillows..

"Hello everyone!"

"Oh shut the fuck up Wilbur!"

"Wilbur! Learn some decency!"

Wilbur raised an eyebrow at the two. Usually they'd be so energetic that one look at them, you can practically tell that they're gonna commit multiple, multiple crimes. Today, they don't seem to be up to any of that. They look like a couple of sleepy boys. 

"What's gotten into you two?" Wilbur asked, floating next to Technoblade. "I thought you'd be all talkative after that event last night."  
  
"That event was fucked up," Tommy said raising his head to look at the ghost.

Tubbo huffed out laugh, "That's just 'cause of the dare that you got." Tubbo got out his phone and showed it to Techno and Wilbur. 

In the video, there were students everywhere wearing different costumes, Halloween decorations, dim lighting and loud music. Despite all that, you can still see Tommy wearing his ghost costume. In the background, you can hear people yelling. "Go on, you can;t chicken out now."  
  
"Alright, alright," Tommy said before making his way towards a girl by the stage. "Excuse me, you're my girlfriend."

A series of laughter overtook not only the sounds in the video, but also in real life as Techno, Wilbur and Tubbo laughed along—Tommy wasn't enjoying it though, evident by him groaning before burying his slightly pink face back into the throw pillow. The girl that Tommy just asked was speaking, but you wouldn't be able to make out what she was saying even if you tried. Tommy then went back to where the group was gathered at.  
  
"What did she say?" Someone asked in between gasps of air.

Tommy was awkwardly laughing as he answered, "She uhh, she couldn't handle being _my_ girlfriend, so I let her down gently." The video cuts off.

Wilbur was rolling around in the air, laughing his arse off. Techno on the other hand was floating on top of Tommy, "Man, the ghost suit was bad enough, you really couldn't save yourself from any more embarrassment could 'ya?" 

Tommy sat up and pointed an accusing finger at Tubbo, "You were recording that?" 

Tubbo pocketed his phone once more, "'course I was. What kind of friend would I be if I didn't record you making an absolute fool of yourself for future references?"

"Remind me to never speak to you _ever_ again," Tommy said. 

Tubbo rolled his eyes, "Yeah, sure."

"Well, what are you two plannin' to do today?" Techno asked. "Phil told us to supervise."

"Oh." Tubbo looked around, "where _is_ Phil? I haven't seen him."

"Just takin' care of ghost stuff, I don't think I can tell you what though," Techno said.

"We didn't plan anything today," Tommy said. "Honestly, we could have headed home, but then we'll have to do chores and shit, so we went here instead."

"How about we talk?" Wilbur said. "We've been hanging out with each other for a little over a month now but I don't think we've ever just sit and talk."

"Maybe it's to do with you guys always just floating 'cause you're ghosts," Tubbo said, earning him looks from the other three.

"Tubbo, you—that wasn't meant to be taken literally," Technoblade said.

"Oh...OHHH." Everyone can see where the realization kicks in. "Okay."

"What do you want to talk about big man?" Tommy asked.

Wilbur hummed, "How about—how about you tell us about yourselves?"

"Booo," Techno yelled, "They're 16 year old boys, no one wants to know anythin' about teenagers," he said. "Now, ghosts, we're much more interesting."

"Oh yeah, Blade?" Tommy said. "How old are you guys then?"

"Twenty-one," the two in question said at the same time.

"Techno's older!" Wilbur said proudly.

"And Phil?" Tubbo asked.

"He's thirty-seven."

"Oh, oh man, Phil's old," Tommy said.   
  
"I'm not that old, what are you talking about?" Phil asked out of nowhere.

"Phil? When did you get here?"

"Just now," Phil answered. "And the first thing I hear is this shithead making fun of my age again."

"Hey, hey," Tommy raised his hands. "In my defense, it's not making fun if it's true."

"Wait," Tubbo said. "You died three years ago, wouldn't that make you 19 when you died?"

"Don't be ridiculous, Tubbo," Wilbur said. "We died when we were 21. Ghosts don't age didn't you know?"

"Ahh," Tubbo nodded. "That makes sense. Can ghost see each other?"

"Normally, we can see each other no problem. We can sense other ghosts. In fact, if you've spent enough time with another ghost, you'll be able to tell who they are just by the spiritual energy that they emit," Phil said. "Now, you _can_ hide yourself from other ghosts, but that takes energy."

"Wilbur said that you're like, bound to places right?" Tommy asked. "Does that mean you can't go anywhere else?"

"Tommy, that's like the definition of being bound," Wilbur said.

"Well..." Techno started, earning him stares from everyone else. "In theory, it is possible. I've read about it in the archives."

"You have libraries?" Tubbo asked.

"Yeah, how do you think we figured out how to use our energies to do shit?" Phil said.

"Alright, alright everyone shut up," Tommy said, suddenly getting a burst of energy. "I just remembered something. What's Ghost Court?"

Phil groaned, "Who told him about the court?" 

"Techno did," Wilbur said.

"I did not do such thing," Technoblade said. "Phil, c'mon, you really think I'd give that information to a literal child?"

Phil sighed, before looking back at the two teens. "Ghost court is a complicated concept," he started.

"Yeah," Techno cut in, "I mean I watched a trial once, I do not think the one who created that concept even understands what they made. "

"It's—it's an odd system," Wilbur said.

"Now you just made it more interesting 'cause you don't want to tell us about it," Tubbo said.

"In layman's term, Ghost Court basically decides what to do with you after you die," Phil started. "You spawn in the Ghost Realm, go to court, plead your case. Once you do they will decide if you still have unfinished business."

"If you do, you come back to Earth as a ghost, bound to certain areas of attachment," Wilbur said. "Of course, getting a second chance to do whatever you still needed to do comes with a price."

"The court takes away memories," Techno said. "That's why we can't remember how we died. Only the fact that Wil died first, followed by Phil, then me. We don't even know _why_ exactly we're here, just that we have to do _something_ to pass on."

"There are also certain areas in your life that would be blurry," Phil said. "From what I've read during my research, those missing memories are the important ones that are needed for you to actually solve your unfinished business."

"So they sent you here to do something that you don't remember what," Tommy said.  
  
"Yeah, and the only clues as to what you're supposed to do, they took away?" Tubbo asked.

"Yep, that's basically it," Phil nodded.

"That's messed up!" Tommy yelled. 

"Told you it was an odd system," Wilbur said. 

"What if like, you really can't figure out what you're supposed to be doing?" Tubbo tilted his head. "Are you going to be stuck on Earth forever?"

"Yeah," Techno said. "Ever read about mansions that have been—supposedly—haunted for years? I mean if you knew what you were supposed to do, why wouldn't you just do it?"

Things were silent for a moment, the ghost figured that the two were still trying to process the information. I mean, we're talking about afterlife here. Tommy and Tubbo were children.

"How about we—" 

"What do you think about death?" 

"Wha—What do you mean, Tommy?" Wilbur asked.

"I mean, you guys already died. What's it like?" Tommy pressed on. "Do you think you'll want to come back to life if you get the chance?"

Phil hummed, "Well, the way I see it, a person has one life for a reason. You do the best that you can while you're alive and once you die...that's it I guess?"

"Yeah," Wilbur agreed. "What would be the purpose of there being "death" if you could just come back?"

Tommy and Tubbo both looked at Techno, who raised an eyebrow. "If you're expecting me to agree, then you'd be wrong," he said. "If there was a way that I could instantly come back after bein' stabbed or somethin', I for one would take that opportunity."

Tommy and Tubbo looked at each other and hummed in sync. "Fair enough," they said.

"Well." Phil clapped his hands together. "I think that's enough ghost-y Q and A. This shit would be messing with your brains if you think about it too much."

"Aww, but Phil," Tommy whined, "We're actually interested in this shit."

"Yeah!" Tubbo agreed. "Don't tell us you don't like it when we gain knowledge!"

"That is _not_ what I said," Phil sighed. "Another time, yeah?" 

"Fine," the two dragged the word out.

"You know what we could do?" Wilbur asked. "How do you guys feel about listening to music?" 

"Oh—YNB?" Techno asked.

"YNB." Wilbur nodded before retreating to his old room to fetch his guitar.

"What's YNB?" Tubbo asked.

"It's a song. You two'd like it," Phil said. "Anyway, I'm gonna go on my rounds, yeah?" 

"Bye Phil!"

Phil made his way out of the house, not even seconds later, he could hear Wilbur strum his guitar followed by the cheering of Tommy and Tubbo. He could tell that they reached the chorus, Techno's gruff voice was jamming along to the song. Phil chuckled. _Wil's a great musician._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you again for all the reads, comments and kudos! I really have fun writing this story and the positive feedback makes me really happy! ❤
> 
> NEXT CHAPTER! It will feature the return of someone who seems to be a fan favorite, along with two, maybe three familiar characters! Although, I don't know when you will be getting this chapter 'cause I have school. Maybe tomorrow if we don't get much activities, if not then...see you at the end of the week again!


	15. Chapter 14

"I'm hungry," Tubbo, who was laying upside down on the couch, suddenly stated.

"Mood," Tubbo heard Tommy agree from the staircase.

"You two have cupboards full of snacks. Why are you hungry?" Wilbur asked. 

"We just are," Tubbo said. "You try stopping your body."  
  
Wilbur laughed, "You know, maybe I should be offended by that."

Tommy arrived in the living room and took a seat across Tubbo, "I'm tired of the snacks that we bought. I want something, I dunno, sweet?"

"Ohh," Tubbo sat right up, closing his eyes for a moment because the sudden movement made his blood rush. "I know where we can get something sweet to eat!"Tommy raised an eyebrow, prompting the other boy to continue. "There's this little bakery just near here. My sister bought cupcakes from there and it tasted amazing!"

Tommy hummed, before standing up, "Alright, I'm down."

"Yay!" Tubbo cheered, "We can have a picnic or something."

"Tubbo, it's November. It's fucking freezing outside."

"Well, I still want to have a picnic!"

Techno floated in the living room to find a Wilbur staring blankly at the door. "What's with you?" He asked.

Wilbur faced his twin, pouting, "Techno," he whined, "I think I just got ignored."

Techno let out an awkward laugh, "There, there," he patted Wilbur's back, in what he hopes is comfort. Glancing at the window, Techno can see Tommy and Tubbo talking about something animatedly. 

"Should we get the ghosts something?" Tubbo asked. 

"Ghosts can't eat remember," Tommy said.   
  
"Oh, right." Tubbo glanced at their surroundings before leaning closer to Tommy, "Maybe we shouldn't talk about ghosts when outside, people are staring," Tubbo whispered.

"Nah, they're staring 'cause I'm awesome," Tommy said. As soon as the words left his mouth, Tubbo began walking faster. "Oh, come on...Tubbo!" He laughed as he tried to catch up to the other boy, which wasn't really hard considering he had longer legs than the other.

"Are we close to the bakery?" Tommy asked.

"Yeah," Tubbo said. "If I didn't get us lost, it should be just around this corner." Tubbo turned right and was met with buildings, none looking like a bakery. 

"Oh, you fucked up," Tommy said in a teasing manner. He turned around ready to walk back, "Let's go back and—oh, wait, is that it?" He pointed to a small bakery just opposite of them. 

"Yeah!" Tubbo facepalmed, "It was a left, not a right." 

The two of them walked over. The shop felt home-y with the light yellow and brown colors that it was painted with. Without even entering, they already felt the warmth emitting from it. Tommy pushed the glass door, the chimes clattering as they hit each other. The place was mostly empty, only a couple of customers by the seats at the corners of the shop.

"Welcome!" a sweet voice greeted them. There by the counter was a girl with brown hair, the few strands at the front was blond. She was wearing a pink apron while holding a freshly baked batch of cookies. "My name's Niki. What can I do for you boys?"

"Hello," Tubbo greeted before walking over to the display stand, contemplating on what to get. "How much for the brownies?"

"That would be—"

"Niki... I think I did something wrong—Oh, hello." Ranboo walked out of the kitchen wearing a unicorn apron and holding a seemingly deflated batch of cookies. 

"Hi Ranboo." Tubbo waved.

"Ranboo! My friend!" Tommy stated.

"You know them Ranboo?" Niki asked the younger.

"Yeah...Do you remember that one time I got dragged of somewhere last month?" Ranboo placed the tray on the counter.

"Are they the ones who dragged you off?" Niki chuckled as she grabbed a cookie from the one that Ranboo brought out. "It still tastes the same, just didn't rise up as much as it's supposed to." Niki faced Tommy and Tubbo, "Do you two want to take these cookies?" she asked, "It'll be on the house of course."

"Yes."

"Yes please."

Tommy and Tubbo picked out a couple more pastries before taking a seat as they waited for Niki to finish packing their orders. Ranboo sat with them and was immediately bombarded with questions.

"Do you like, work here?" Tubbo asked.

"What's with the apron?" Tommy asked.

"Those are two very different questions," Ranboo said. "Uhh, I don't exactly work here, I just help my sister—Niki, she owns this place—sometimes," he answered. "As for the apron, I made this a little while back. I really like the unicorn design."

"Hey," Tubbo perked up, "Do you want to come have a picnic with us?" 

"Umm, should I? Isn't that supposed to be a you guys' thing?"

"'ey you ran away from 6 football players with us," Tommy started. "If that isn't the ultimate bond then what the fuck are ya doing with 'cho life."

"Well, I guess—"

The chimes rattled nosily as the glass door was thrown open profusely. A red haired male entered, his eyes scanning the shop. "Ranboo!" He rushed over to where they are. "We're doomed!"

"Wha—What do you mean?" Ranboo asked the redhead. 

"Where did you hide the crystal ball?" 

Ranboo turned to point towards the direction of the kitchen. "Somewhere behind all the flour." The male rushed over to the double white doors of the kitchen.

"Who was that?" Tubbo asked.   
  
"That was Fundy, the guy who did this to my hair," Ranboo said. "He did Niki's too."

"Does he know that he looks like he has ears on his head 'cause of his hair?" Tommy said. "Looks like a fox."

"Yes, he is very aware," Ranboo chuckled.  
  
Niki approached their table with Tommy and Tubbo's orders. "Why is Fundy scouting the kitchen?"

"We sorta umm, _stole_ Eret's crystal ball the other day," Ranboo said. 

"Yeah, and I think he found out that it was missing." Fundy emerged from the kitchen holding a glass ball. "Ranboo we have to put this back in Eret's tent before she opens up for tonight."

"What do you mean we?" Ranboo asked. "You were the one who wanted to use it scam your friends."

"You're an accomplice!"

"Well too bad _pal,_ Ranboo already made plans to come with us!" Tommy stood up and pulled Ranboo off of his seat.

"Thanks for the food Niki!" Tubbo grabbed the bag and rushed off. He could hear Fundy yell in despair in the background.

Tommy and Tubbo laughed as they dragged Ranboo away from the bakery. "So, is this gonna be a monthly thing or...?"

"Say, who's Eret and why the crystal ball?" Tommy asked as they slowed down.

"So uhh, okay. A little family history. You know that mansion on the hill near outskirts of town?" Ranboo asked the two.

"Yeah," Tubbo said. "What about it?"

"The ones ones that live there are Eret's parents," Ranboo started. "Their parents adopted Fundy a few years ago, then adopted Niki and I last year. The crystal ball is for the family business." 

"What kind of family business uses crystal balls?" Tubbo furrowed his eyebrows.

"Yeah, are you guys psychics or some shit?" Tommy asked.

"Yes actually." 

"What? No way!"   
  
The three teens were near the forest entrance once more. "Do you guys—do you guys live in the woods or something?"

"'course not."

"Oh Ranboo you fool."

"Hey, I was just asking alright?"

Tubbo got the map out of his pocket and began leading them to the house. "We have a sort of base here. So we'll have the picnic there."

"What do you 'psychics'—"Tommy made quotation marks with his hands—"do anyway? Tell the future?"

"To an extent," Ranboo said. "I can't do that yet though. I think only Eret can do that as of now."

"Oh, there's the house," Tommy said, walking ahead. Even from afar, his 'We're back bitches!' was still in earshot.

"Yet?" Tubbo asked Ranboo. "Well what _can_ you do?" Tubbo turned the doorknob letting himself in.   
  
Ranboo followed Tubbo to—what he guesses would be a living room. "I've only been learning for a year, but one of the best ones I can do is see gho—"

In the middle of the living room, Ranboo can see a floating Wilbur straightening his posture to try and peak at Techno's cards. Techno was leaning away trying to hide what he has, while Phil was taking his turn. Phil dropped a card in the middle of them three, which remained levitating along with the other dropped cards. "Wil, your turn."

Ranboo blinked his eyes slowly. 

"...Oh."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for the reads, comments, and votes! It really makes me happy that you are enjoying this story and the support you give makes me more motivated to write ❤
> 
> NEXT CHAPTER! Picnic with the gang ft. Ranboo


	16. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heyy we be back! I really hope you read these chapter notes. Thank you all for the support on this story! All the reads, kudos, and comments ❤ The comments make me really happy whenever I read them. I'd love to respond but my social anxiety won't even give me enough confidence to do so, that's why we're sticking with general announcements like this! 
> 
> Anyways, onto the chapter!

Wilbur noticed the black and white haired kid standing by the entrance of the living room. Smirking, he nudged Techno and whispered, "Hey look, its Phil's favorite child." Phil heard the comment and groaned in annoyance.

Techno looked up from his cards and glanced at the direction Wilbur was gesturing with his head. Ranboo stood there, staring blankly at their general area. If Techno didn't know any better, he would assume that the kid could see them. Technoblade stared the kid straight in the eyes.

Ranboo looked away. "Uhh guys," he called out to the other two teens. "I have concerns."

Tommy, who was now holding a blanket he and Tubbo deemed a picnic blanket, turned to Ranboo, "What d'ya mean?" 

"There—there are ghosts here," Ranboo said in a whisper while subtly gesturing to the three floating figures who were watching them closely. "Did you—Are aware?"

Tommy stared at Ranboo with a surprised expression. 

"Oh, we know," Tubbo said. "This is their house actua—wait a minute."

"Ah shit, so he _can_ see us," Technoblade said, catching the attention of the three teens. 

"Holy shit!" Tommy exclaimed. "How can you see them?" 

"Were you two not listening to a thing that I _just_ said?" Ranboo sighed. 

"In my defense," Tommy started, "I didn't want to."

Wilbur laughed at Tommy's stupid response before floating closer to the boys. "You're here to have a picnic right? So let's have a picnic and chat."

Soon enough, all six of them were in the front yard. The teens all sat on the light and dark brown, checkered patterned blanket. The cookies, biscuits and brownies all displayed on plates in the middle. Tommy was the first one to dig in.

"So, Ranboo right?" Phil asked making Ranboo nod at him. "Mind explaining how yo—why are you holding a flower?" Phil gestured to Ranboo's left hand that was holding a poppy 

"Yeah, you picked that up when we entered the forest," Tubbo said.

"Oh." Ranboo placed the flower on the ground. "Niki says its a habit that I developed when I was younger. I sometimes just randomly carry things around without realizing it." Wilbur tilted his head when the name was mention. Something about it sounded...sounded oddly familiar.  
  
"Alright," Techno said snapping Wilbur out of his train of thought. He watched as Techno floated closer to Ranboo, now directly in front of the boy, giving him a blank—yet intimidating—look. "Explain how you can see us."  
  
"I will, I will," Ranboo laughed awkwardly as he backed away from the pink haired male who—for some reason—kept staring at him.

"Lay off the kid Tech," Wilbur laughed. "You're gonna make him piss himself."

"Okay, long story short," Ranboo began. "I live with a family of psychics, they've been teaching me things so that I can help with the family business. One of the things they taught me is—well—see ghosts."

Wilbur furrowed his eyebrows, "How come you weren't able to see me the first time you came to this forest?" 

"That's 'cause you're ugly," Tommy, who was eating a brownie, muffled out. This earned him a glare from Wilbur.

"Thing is," Ranboo chuckled awkwardly, his hand reaching for his nape. "I've only learned how last week, and ever since then...I haven't been able to turn off the ability."

Tubbo bit into another cookie, "Ranboo, these cookies really are flat," he commented.

"That's like you're third one, mate," Phil said. "I doubt it bothers you as much."

"But Phil, you can practically taste the flatness!"  
  
"I'm not the best baker alright?"  
  
Tommy snorted at the comment, "Bet you're one to put spaghetti on cinnamon rolls."

"That is—" Ranboo started—"That is oddly specific, where'd you get that idea?"

"Ignore him," Phil said with a chuckle. "He just spouts out whatever the first words that comes to his mind."

"'ey!" Tommy countered. "I bet I'm better than—who can I put here—" he whispered. "Shakespeare!"

" _You?_ You know Shakespeare, Tommy?" Techno raised an eyebrow.

"Is that the guy who wrote Moby Dick?" Everyone immediately turned to Tubbo.

"I'm pretty sure it isn't actually," Ranboo answered.

"Is it not?"  
  
"It's not," Techno said. "Shakespeare's the one who made Romeo and Juliet."

"How—how did you manage to confuse those two, Tubbo?" Phil asked.

Tubbo smiled, "I just really wanted to say that." Tommy and Wilbur both burst out laughing, while Techno groaned. Phil and Ranboo just sighed.

The three teens continued to eat while chatting with the ghosts. Ranboo couldn't help but feel a tad bit uncomfortable. Why? Well, you try eating while a ghost with an intimidating presence stare you down for reasons unbeknownst to anyone other than the ghost himself.

Taking a deep breath, Ranboo faced the pink haired male, "Alright be honest, do I look weird or something? 'cause you've been staring quite a bit."

"Is something wrong Techno?" Phil raised an eyebrow at his eldest.

Techno folded his arms across his chest, "For some reason, I feel like I've seen you before."

"Maybe it's because, I don't know," Tubbo started. "You already saw him that one time last month?"

Techno gave Tubbo a look, "Even at that time, he already looked familiar."

"We've been dead for three years Techno," Phil said. "Maybe your memory's just messing with ya mate."

"Oh wow, three years?" Ranboo said. "It would be impossible for you to know me. My sister and I just moved here last year when we got adopted."

"Something's wrong with yer 'ead," Tommy said as he continued to snack on pastries. 

Techno just hummed to himself, "Must be mistaken then," he said, not really buying it. 

"We've eaten a crap ton of food," Tubbo said as he finished his fourth brownie.   
  
"You sure have!" Ranboo, who only ate what he could, said—the mocking tone evident in his voice.

"Anyone up for Badminton?" Tommy stood up from the picnic blanket as he stretched.

"Tommy, you literally just finished eating," Phil said. "You really want to fuck up your stomach?"

Tommy huffed out, "I'll be fine Phil. Tommy Innit will not be taken down by a fucking game," he said. "Hold on, I'll get the stuff. I saw them in the basement.

"What else is there in that basement?" Tubbo frowned. "Next thing you know, there might be bodi—"

"Okay, first of all," Techno began. "If there ever _is_ a body, I wouldn't hide it in my house." 

Wilbur toned out the—although seemingly interesting—conversation, and opted to face Phil. "Shouldn't you be stopping him?" 

Phil shrugged, "I already warned him. Kid's not five, he knows the consequences," he said. "If that little shithead wants to feel sick at the end of the day, then he's welcome to."

"Ohh," Wilbur smirked. "Dadza's being merciless today," he clapped.

"Hey," Phil laughed. "The way you learned not to abuse curfew rules is by staying outside for thirty minutes, begging for someone to open the door. You thought that me and Techno we're asleep, when we were watching you suffer from the second floor."

"Yeah." Wilbur dropped the cheery demeanor. "That memory lives on to this day."

"Alright!" Tommy said as he approached the group once more. "I have the rackets and the shuttlecock," he laughed. "Y'know the name has the word cock in it."

"Ahh, yes, the humor of a 13 year old," Techno's monotonous voice mocked. "Give me one of 'em rackets, I have the urge to beat a child," he paused, "and by that I mean win in a game." The last bit of his statement sent everyone laughing to some extent.

"Fine, fine," Tommy mumbled. "But don't be too impressed by my skills."

Techno was nowhere near impressed. Not at all.

"Tommy, dude." Technoblade lowered the racket. "You haven't returned _any_ of my serves. We've been at this for three minutes now."

"Hang on big man," Tommy said, slightly panting from chasing around the shuttlecock. "This is just a warm up." There goes another serve. "Ya know what? I don't think you deserve to see my skills." Tommy began walking away from their makeshift court, which is basically just a string hung between two trees that acted as the net. Tommy looked back at Techno one last time, "Nah, I'm too good for this."

Technoblade rolled his eyes at the younger. "Anyone up?"  
  
"Ranboo, you play." Tommy handed him the racket.

"Oh," Ranboo said. "I don't play—"

"C'mon, doubt you'd be worse than freaking Tommy," Techno said, which Tommy replied by sticking his tongue out. 

"Wilbur? Phil?" Ranboo offered the racket to the two ghosts. 

Wilbur shook his head, "That's too much energy, man."

"Tubbo?"

"D'you really want my stomach to burst, Ranboo?" Tubbo raised an eyebrow on his poker face.

"Go on Ranboo."

"Yeah don't be such a pussy."

"Let's go peer pressure!"

Ranboo glanced at Techno with narrowed eyes. "Yeah, alright, fine."

"Man, you did _not_ resist at all," Techno said.

The game began, and it turned out to be an actual game that time. "You aren't too bad at this," Techno said.

"I _am_ somewhat athletic," Ranboo returned the shuttlecock to Techno's side. "I did play volleyball in the past."

The two played for a couple more rounds before eventually, Ranboo decided that it was probably time for him to get going. "Yes!" Ranboo cheered as the Techno overestimated his strength and the shuttlecock flew over the boundaries. 

"That's 6-4," Ranboo said. "I'm the four. Anyway, it's sorta getting late, I think I'm gonna have to go." Ranboo said.

"Understandable," Technoblade said.

"We'll go with you," Tubbo stood up from his seat. "It _is_ getting late."

"Bye!"

"Nice meeting you."

"See ya."

Phil watched as the three teens retreat, heading towards the forest exit. "Are we the ones who's gonna have to clean this?" He heard Wilbur ask as he stared at the left over mess from the picnic. 

"Well, they certainly aren't coming back," Technoblade grumbled. 

Tommy came rushing back, stopping just before the small clearing of their yard. They saw the boy cup his hands over his mouth, "Tubbo and I are sleeping over tomorrow!" He announced and left.

Phil took a breath before raising his voice for Tommy to hear, even if the other was walking farther away. "Alrig—"

"WAIT, WHAT?!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NEXT CHAPTER! Sleepy Bois Sleep Over!
> 
> Thank you for reading! Comments and suggestions are appreciated!
> 
> -LuminaStarCrest


	17. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! New chapter here! This could have been up like 2 days ago, but my research group leader told me that we had to do last minute editing on our paper. When I opened the file, the only thing I could think of was "Dang that's a lot of editing." 
> 
> Anyway, this was longer than usual, I think? I hope you enjoy! 
> 
> Thank you again for all the support on this story! You people are the best!

"Tubbo!" Wilbur yelled, his figure standing—floating—in the middle of the living room. "Come! We shall set forth on a journey to collect these sacred items they call blankets and pillows!" Tubbo—who, like Tommy, was already dressed in his sleepwear—cheered as he followed Wilbur to the second floor of the house so that they can gather things that they would need to make a fort.

Tommy gave the two an odd look, while Technoblade—who was beside him—shook his head with a disappointed sounding sigh. Philza chuckled at Wilbur and Tubbo's antics and turned to the other two, "I'll clear out the area for the fort. Why don't you two get the food ready, yeah?"

Techno groaned, "I didn't even agree to participate in this."

"Oh c'mon big man." Tommy tried nudging Techno with his elbow, only for it to go through the ghost. "Is that any way to treat guests?" He began leading him and Techno to the kitchen. 

"Guest? You two are barely guests here," Techno said. "You practically claimed this house as your own."  
  
"Now let's not get into the details, Blade," Tommy said. He grabbed the two paper bags filled with pastries from the bakery, while Techno floated up to the cupboards to fetch bags of chips. "Hey look, there's a note." Tommy smiled as he read. 'Have fun on your sleepover -NIki'

Techno hummed from behind the boy as he read the note as well, "Well, she seems nice," he said before going back to gathering bowls and plates for the food.

"Yeah," Tommy agreed, "Did you know, she gave us free cookies yesterday?" Tommy said, arranging the plate. Techno grunted in acknowledgement. 

"You're not very talkative, are ya Techno?"  
  
"Huh, I wonder what gave that away."

"Well, you know it's just that—was that sarcasm?"  
  
"..."

"Bitch," Tommy glared at the older before going over to the cooler where he and Tubbo kept drinks. "'ey! Techno!"

Technoblade instinctively looked, only to be met with tiny bits of ice. It went through him of course. The little shithead didn't mind that though, evident with the mocking grin on his face.

"...Why?" Techno asked. "Why are you like this?"

Tommy was about to respond, but was cut off by a loud yell from upstairs. "What the fuck are those two doing?"

A loud crash echoed through one of the bedrooms as Tubbo fell to the floor. Wilbur's voice reaching a higher pitch the longer he laughed at the boy.

"Wilbur, have you ever been told how much of an arsehole you can be?" Tubbo asked.

Wilbur gasped for air, "I did warn you Tubbo." he wiped non-existent tears from his eyes.

"Saying, 'The sacred Quilt of Wimblerton is guarded by a creature with unmatched godly forces' then telling me to open the closet door only for a laughing skeleton to fall on me," Tubbo paused to push the skeleton prop—that was at least a head taller than him, mind you—off of him. "That doesn't count as warning!"

Wilbur hummed, "No. I say it _does_ count."

"Wha—" 

"Oh look, there's the quilt." Wilbur pointed to the corner of his old closet. 

Tubbo sighed and went to grab the blue and white quilt. He then stashed it into a box that he and Wilbur were filling up with all the blankets and pillows they could find. It was a rather large box. Large enough to cover Tubbo's whole upper half when he lifts it up. 

Wilbur chuckled as he watched the young boy stumble a bit—seeing that the huge box was blocking his vision, as well as the fact that Tubbo _is_ small. He floated closer to Tubbo, "Alright, I'll take that." Wilbur touched the box, transferring some of his energy so that the box would be considered as a part of him and would be able to float as well. 

"Oh! Thank you, Wilbur." Tubbo smiled at the older as they made their way back to the living room. 

"Phil, you're really working those bones of your's aren't you?" Wilbur teased when he spotted Philza moving the furniture to the side. 

"Wilbur, if ghosts had bones, I would have gotten rid of your's a long time ago," Phil replied nonchalantly.

"Okay!" Wilbur immediately turned to place the box in the middle of the room, dropping the subject.

"Get told off!" Tommy came into the living room laughing at Wilbur. Techno lazily floating behind him so that they can start building the fort, leaving the food in the kitchen for later.

Wilbur rolled his eyes, "Shut up, Tommy." This only made Tommy laugh harder. 

"Well, let's get started!" Tubbo said walking off to get chairs. 

Tommy and Wilbur began layering the thicker blankets on the carpet for the base. It was supposed to be a mattress, but the only ones on the house were to hard to move, so they stuck with blankets. 

"Why are your mattresses so shitty, Wilbur?" 

"It's not—Tommy stop, that looks horrible."

"You look horrible!"

Techno was helping Phil with the frame of the fort, adjusting the chairs in accordance to what the two teenagers wanted. 

"No, move it to the left," Tommy said.

"A little more," Tubbo added.

"There!" Techno and Phil let out a sigh.

"Now you just have to move it a tiny bit to the right." One of the chairs nearly went flying.

Tubbo grabbed a couple of the thin blankets and began throwing them on top of the fort as well as pillows and his and Tommy's bags inside. 

"Tubbo, don't just throw them around." Techno tried arranging the blankets.

"Go, go, go!" 

"You two aren't helping!" Phil scolded.

Phil hummed as he floated around, as well as through, the fort. "Yeah, I think that's fine. Just don't—" Tommy and Tubbo cheered and rushed inside. "Don't move around too much!" Too late, one of them had already kicked one of the chairs. 

"Oh, there it goes," Wilbur said.

Luckily, Techno has quick reflexes. He managed to catch the blankets that served as a roof before it fell down. "One of you move that chair back," he said. 

"That didn't even last a second." Wilbur floated inside the fort, with Techno following him.

Phil soon followed after bringing in the food, the drinks—juice boxes to be precise, seeing that Tommy and Tubbo had nearly spent all their allowance on things for the house—floating behind him.

"You two said something about a movie?" Wilbur asked.

Tommy perked up, "Oh do _I_ have the movie for you." He grabbed his bag and pulled out his laptop. 

"No," Tubbo groaned. "Please no. You've played that movie every time I stay over at your place."

"Is his movie choices _that_ bad?" Techno asked.

"It's not that the movie's bad..." Tubbo said, he leaned closer to Techno, "It's him _watching_ the movie that's bad." Techno huffed out a laugh at Tubbo's comment.

"There we go." Tommy backed away from his laptop, the movie already starting.

"UP?" Wilbur asked. Tubbo buried his head in a pillow and let out a muffled scream of agony.

Tommy and Tubbo began eating their snacks as they watched the movie. Tommy yelling 'Carl Fredricksen' when the man first appeared. Phil 'aw-ed' in sorrow as the starting sequence came to an end. Techno liked the part with the dogs, "That's a nice Hound Army there," he would say. Wilbur watched the movie silently, not as invested in it compared to Tommy. Tubbo, he's been making whining noises all throughout the movie as he was bored.

Once UP finished, they began another movie, and another after that, and they began to watch another one after that. Well, Tommy, Techno and Phil were watching the movie. Wilbur—who had already watched the movie that they are currently once when he was alive with an orange haired boy. One of his friends he would assume, he couldn't be too sure. It was another blurry memory—was playing around with Tubbo.

"Ah." Tubbo opened his mouth. Wilbur aimed a popcorn and threw it, only getting it in Tubbo's mouth because the younger moved to catch it. Tubbo let out a cough as he caught the popcorn, Wilbur immediately handing him some juice. "Hit my Uvula," Tubbo explained before taking a sip. "At least that's what I think its called."

"Keep it down you two," Phil said with a light chuckle. "Someone's out like a light." 

There, in the middle of Techno and Phil, was Tommy—laid on his stomach, head peaking out of his arms—asleep and lightly snoring.

Wilbur let out a tiny 'awww' as he floated over the boy and running his now tangible hand through the boy's hair. He let out a happy gasp and faced Techno, "His hair is as fluffy as it looks," he said. He could barely feel anything, but the lightest tingle in his ghost hand made him believe that Tommy's hair is in fact soft.

Techno shook his head at Wilbur before turning to Tubbo. "Maybe you should go to sleep too—" he glanced at the clock displayed on the laptop—"it's nearing 1 am."

Tubbo yawned at the mention of the time, "Yeah, alright." 

Phil ruffled the brunet's hair as the boy laid down, "I'll clean up, get some rest," he said before gathering the plates and trash then heading off to the kitchen.

"Well," Wilbur began, "Me and Techno are gonna go rest, we've used quite a lot of energy today."

"Where are you sleeping? In your rooms?" Tubbo asked.

"No," Techno said. "Ghost don't really sleep—but you can call it that if you want, that's what Phil does—and we're goin' to the Ghost Realm." Tubbo furrowed his eyebrows, silently asking them to explain.

"We replenish our energy by...well, just floating around in the Ghost Realm," Wilbur said. "We just spend enough time there to absorb the realm's spiritual 'aura'." Wilbur made quotation marks as he said the last word.

Tubbo hummed in understanding. "Well, we'll be goin' now." Techno said, disappearing with a pop.

"Phil will be around, so go to him if you two ever need anything." Wilbur waved goodbye as he followed Techno's lead. 

Tubbo yawned as he snuggled in the blankets. Despite the lack of electricity to power the electric fans or the AC, it was actually pretty cold, maybe its because they're in a forest. Tubbo could see Phil blowing out the candles, before eventually falling asleep.

When Tubbo said it was cold, you better believe him. Tommy let out a shuddering breath as he lightly glared at the brunet who was hogging all the blankets—be it the ones that were used as base, or the blankets that were used as roof and fell down after he and Tubbo kicked away the chairs as they slept.

Tommy sighed, he didn't want to wake up Tubbo so rather than asking if he could have a blanket or pulling the blankets away from the boy, Tommy stood up. Hopefully, not all the blankets were used for the fort. He walked upstairs and entered Techno's room first. He scavenged around, but found nothing so he went to the room next door, Wilbur's.

Entering Wilbur's room, the first thing he noticed was a skeleton on the floor. He nudged it slightly with his foot, jumping when it let out a shrill laugh.

"Shit," he whispered harshly as he frantically tried to turn it off. Hopefully Tubbo didn't wake up from that. After manhandling the skeleton for a minute, it eventually shushed up. Tommy let out a sigh. 

"Now, where are the blankets," he mumbled to himself as he went through Wilbur's stuff. Starting from the most probable location, the closet. There wasn't much in it, just a bunch of clothes, one being a yellow sweater, which he threw aside. "The fuck is this?" He pulled out a small notebook from one of the jacket pockets. 

Tommy knew that he probably shouldn't be snooping around, but her was curious, so he opened it. "Jubilee Line, " Tommy read. It was a page filled with words, and cords, and scribbled notes. _Must be one of Wilbur's songs._ He read through the notebook, there were some sad songs in it, some were weird—"Squids are people too. What the fuck?"—but the one of the ones he liked most was the "Internet Ruined Me."

"Oh hey, this is the song that Wilbur sung to us that one time," Tommy said when he stumbled upon the lyrics of "Your New Boyfriend", humming along as he read.

Tommy turned the page again, expecting another song, but the words on top of the page read "Vague Memories" then below was a bulleted list. "Cornfield...Lake...Fish?...Machete..." Tommy furrowed his eyebrows as he read through it. "Cave...Ni—"

"What are you doing?"

Tommy nearly threw the notebook at the one who spoke. Luckily, he managed to control himself and opted to turn around and hid the notebook behind his back.  
  
"Phil," Tommy dragged the name out with a nervous laugh. "I—I was just looking for a blanket. Tubbo's a selfish bitch."

"Uhuh," Phil said, tilting his head to the side, "And that behind you?"

"What are you talking about, there's nothing—" Phil gave him a look—"It's a notebook." He showed it to Phil.

"Is that where Wil keeps track of memories?"

"Yeah...Why exactly?"

Phil shook his head with a sigh. "Tommy, you know how ghosts need to complete their unfinished business before they can pass on?" Tommy nodded. "Well, even before you and Tubbo came here, we've been trying to do that. Wil keeps track of his vague memories in hopes that one day, he can piece together a coherent story and figure out what his unfinished business is."

"...you said that you forget about memories that are important so you can have closure. You cant remember how you died...does that mean you guys dying has something to do with your unfinished business?"

Phil hummed, "Could be.But, again, everyone forgets how they died. We tried looking into how we died," Phil said. "When we were sent back to Earth, its only been three days since we died. There was still electricity and all that. We thought we spawned in our house because we died there or somewhere near, but after looking around, we couldn't find any trace of it, Techno tried looking up any news, but the most that we could find in the internet were missing posters with us on it."

"You've been trying for..three years?" Tommy asked.

"Yup. Its kinda hard to find clues especially if the farthest you can go is at the forest entrance," Phil laughed off Tommy's statement. "You came for blankets right?" He asked. Tommy nodded. "Come on, there should be some in my room." Phil gestured for the boy to follow.

_So they are trying to pass on..._ Tommy thought, before perking up at an idea. _I can go pass the forest entrance...Tubbo and I can help!_

"You coming mate?" He heard Phil ask from the hallway. 

"Yeah, hold up big man!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NEXT CHAPTER! Tommy and Tubbo be visiting a mansion. Whose? I think you know, it's mentioned like once.
> 
> Thank you for reading! Comments and suggestions are appreciated.
> 
> -LuminaStarCrest


	18. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> New chapter drop! Not really a fan of how this turned out. I feel like i could have done this chapter better, but since nothing really comes to mind, umm, here? Anyway! Thank you for all the reads, kudos, and comments!

"You found out all of that while I was snoring my arse off?" Tubbo asked as he and Tommy walked out of his house. 

"Yeah, so you in?" Tommy asked.

"Well, if that's what they want," Tubbo said. "It _would_ be easier since we can collect info for them outside the forest. Where do we start anyway?"  
  
"I have no clue," Tommy said. "But you know who could have?"

"Uhh," Tubbo thought about it for a moment. "...Yeah, I have nothing."

Tommy groaned, "There is literally a whole arse family of psychics that live in this town."

"Oh yeah! We can ask Ranboo," Tubbo exclaimed. "Do you think his at the bakery?" 

"It's a weekend so I doubt he's at school."

The two of them walked the familiar route to the bakery that had became their favorite place to get food. Tommy pushed the door and the chimes clanked together alerting the people inside that someone had entered. 

"Wel—oh! Hello you two," Niki greeted them. "What can I do for you? Hopefully not pastries 'cause I think you two have been enjoying them too much," she giggled.

"Well, do we have good news for you Niki," Tommy said. "One, we're fucking broke, and two—" he was interrupted by a loud crashing sound that came from the kitchen.

"Fundy?" Niki called. 

The white doors of the kitchen opened revealing Fundy who's covered in flour. "Hey Niki," he dragged the word out. "I—uh—yeah. The kitchen...mmmm.....broke?"

Niki sighed. She should have known better than to let Fundy in her kitchen. She turned back to the two teens, "and two?"

"Is Ranboo here?" Tubbo asked.

"Ranboo? No. I think he's at home at the moment," Niki said.

"Aww dang it," Tubbo said.   
  
"I can take you two there," Fundy suggested as he dusted himself. 

"Oh, coo—"

"But! What do I get in return?" Fundy asked.

"Are you seriously going to try and scam Ranboo's friends?" Niki crossed her arms on her chest. Tubbo and Tommy were mockingly shaking their heads, waving their fingers, and 'tsk'-ing behind Niki.

Fundy hummed, "Alright, fine." He walked to the other side of the counter and wrapped his arms around Tommy and Tubbo's shoulders. "I have to change clothes anyway." He begins leading them out the shop.

And with that Niki waved at the three as they left her bakery. When the door closed, a though crossed Niki's mind. "He really just left me to clean the kitchen by myself didn't he?" she sighed.

***  
"So," Fundy started. "Why exactly are you two looking for Ranboo?"

"Just gonna ask him a couple of questions," Tubbo said.

"What kind of questions?"

"What's it to you furry boy?" Tommy asked back. Tubbo nudged Tommy with his elbow giving him a 'Why the fuck are you saying that to the person helping us?' kind of look. 

"Okay, first of all, just because my hair looks like fox ears does not mean that I'm a furry!" Fundy defended. "Second, I also live there, so I should know your motives as to why I'm taking you to my house."

Tommy hummed, "Alright, fair point." He nodded, "Tubbo you tell him in the vaguest way possible."

"Okay, so basically, ghosts."

"Ghosts?" Fundy furrowed his eyebrows before realization hit him making him bring his hands to his face as he groaned. "Did Ranboo seriously forget that we're not supposed to tell other people about the business."

"Apparently so," Tubbo said. 

"Why wouldn't you want to tell others?" Tommy asked. "That's a shit way to run a business."

"There's a lot of madmen who'd love to have their own psychics," Fundy sighed and look at the younger two, "I guess as long as you two don't run your mouths, it should be fine. This way." Fundy led them towards a hill, and on top you could see a mansion.

"What the fuck!" Tommy exclaimed. "You live in that?"

Tubbo sighed, "Alright, we're climbing the hill then?" he asked sadly.

"I—I mean, if you want to," Fundy said. "But like, the stairs are literally just over there." He pointed to the left, where a stone staircase can be located.

"Oh."

The three of them walked up the stairs and was met by a large gate. Fundy went over to the intercom and pressed it, "Hey! Ranboo! You there man?"

The gates opened, letting them inside. They found the black and white haired boy standing by the front door. "Hey, I didn't know you we're bringing guests."

"Yeah, about these guests," Fundy started. "Wha—Why do they know?"

It took Ranboo a while to realize what Fundy was pertaining to. "What do you—Ohhhh. Yeah," Ranboo dragged the word out. "It slipped my mind."

Fundy sighed before facing the two, "Well, he fucked up. Zip it alright?" Fundy turned around and started walking inside, "They're your problem now!" He pats Ranboo's back as he passed. 

"So..."

"Alright Ranboo we need your hel—," Tommy started— "did you know you only need a 'B' at the end of your name and—"

"Yes. I am very much aware."

"Yeah...Ranboob," Tommy snickered.

"You know what. I _don't_ think you need help." Ranboo stepped backwards and slowly began closing the door. 

"Wait! Ranboo!" Tubbo whined.

"Alright, I'll fucking stop!"

Ranboo re-opened the door, "Come in!" He moved out of the way to let the other two inside. 

Tommy and Tubbo couldn't help but gawk at the insides of the mansion. "WOAH! That's a big arse chandelier!" Tubbo said as he stood below the said chandelier in the living room.   
  
"Holy shit! Is this fucking gold?"

"Please don't break anything!"

Tommy and Tubbo eventually settled down and the three of them sat in the living room. Tommy told Ranboo what happened with Wilbur's book and all that. "So you want to know more about unfinished businesses?" Ranboo asked. 

"Yeah, think you can help us?" Tommy asked.

"I don't know much about it either, " Ranboo stood up from the couch, "but, we can always read about them." He gestured for the two to follow him.

The three walked up to the second floor of the mansion. A couple of twists and turns, Ranboo stops to face the other two, "I have no clue where we are."

Tommy bursts out laughing, "What the fuck dude!"  
  
Tubbo who was giggling asked, "How can you get lost in your own house?"  
  
"Give me a break," Ranboo groaned. "I've only been here for a year and this place is massive!"

"Not massive enough if this is the second time I've seen your face in the span of ten minutes." Ranboo turned to see Fundy—new clothes and all—approaching them.

"You know, you can stop being such a dick and just take us to the.." Tommy looked at Ranboo silently asking him to finish the sentence. 

"Library," Ranboo said. "We need to read a couple of books there."

Fundy hummed, "Alright, but you owe me." He started walking to a different direction, gesturing for the teens to follow him,

"I do not owe you."

"Yes you do."

"I'm pretty sure I don't," Ranboo said. "Remember when you tried to make voter frau—"

"We do not talk about that."

"Exactly, I don't owe you anything."

The four of them stopped in front of a giant room with double doors. "Here we are!" Fundy says. "I don't know what you guys are looking for, but listen to the book warnings."

"We will," Ranboo said.

"Yeah, well, I'm outta here, bye!" Fundy gave them a final wave before heading off to who knows where.

"Thank you Fundy," Tubbo waved at the retreating figure.

"Bye fur boy!" Tommy yelled, which resulted in him being flipped off by the said boy.

Ranboo called the two over and he pushed open the library door. It revealed a large room, walls made out of bookshelves, the middle filled with a couple of tables and chairs, and of course, never ending books. 

"How the fuck are we gonna find any shit in here?" Tommy said as he opened a random book that he got from the closest bookshelf, _Collection Tales: The Village That Went Mad._

"We do categorize things you know," Ranboo laughed. He lead them to a section by the back of the whole room. "Starting from here," Ranboo placed his hand on a bookshelf, "to the wall, is all related to ghosts."

So they started reading. Tubbo started from the bookshelf that Ranboo touched and made his way down the aisle. Tommy preferred running down further down the aisle and choosing a random bookshelf. The first few books he never really found anything useful. They're mostly about seeing and sensing spirits. Tommy went to get another book, now this was really odd. He's seen the same first page for all the books he had went through. 

"Fair warning, any liabilities that this book will bring will not be—Aw come on, is this just some sort of legal shit?" Tommy skipped through it, and a couple more pages since he found them boring. 

"Have you guys found what you're looking for?" Tommy hears Ranboo ask from one of the tables. He went and walked back there, still reading the book that he took.

"I haven't found anything I think would be useful," Tubbo said as he approached the table. "I did find a cool book though." He showed the book cover to the other two. 

"The Story of L'manberg?" Tommy read the title. "Is that some fairy tail or something?"  
  
"Oh, that's a history book," Ranboo answered. "It's from a far place from here."

Tommy raised an eyebrow at Tubbo, "Why the fuck were you looking at history books?"

"Well," Tubbo started. "I may or may not have wondered off to another section...I got bored alright."

Tommy nodded his head, "Ranboo, why are there so many books?" he whined.

Ranboo pinched the bridge of his nose, "It's a library! What did you expect?" 

Tommy groaned, "We didn't think we'd have to read through the whole book."

"But you don't."

Tommy and Tubbo looked at Ranboo as if he'd grown another head. "What do you mean?"

"You can always just look at the table of contents," Ranboo said. "You can see what's basically inside the book with that."

"Oh!" Tubbo exclaimed. "That's a good point."

Tommy flipped back to the table of contents section of his book. Silently reading through it, his eyes lit up when he read the second to last one topic. "Unfinished Business Explained (more or less)," Tommy read out what was written. He flipped to the page and skimmed through the words.   
  
"Ghosts come back to Earth for closure. That is where unfinished businesses come in," Tommy began. "They are...yeah...blah blah blah. Memories are taken away in exchange for the second chance....yeah, uhuh...memories come back either slowly through clues or in an instant if presented with something strong enough to trigger that memory. Examples are significant items, and more effectively people related to the memory," Tommy finished reading a paragraph. "The fuck does that mean?"

"I think that, like your unfinished business is like you had a fight with a family member before you died," Ranboo started. "So when you come back memories about that person is blurred and stuff. To get back that memory the ghost has to see an item like that family member's favorite shirt or something, or the person themselves."  
  
"Wait," Tubbo said. "You think the 'Niki' written in the journal is Niki Niki? or some random person named Niki?" 

"I was practically glued to my sister when we were younger," Ranboo said. "I don't think I've ever seen Wilbur, Techno or Phil my entire life...then again, memory isn't my string suit."

"You don't say, Mr. I got lost in my own fucking house," Tommy said.   
  
"Yeah! Who's are you to say Niki isn't the one Wil is remembering, memory boy!" Tubbo sad.

"I guess you can give it a try," Ranboo said.

"Great, we can go to the bakery and ask her!" Tubbo said.

"Or, you can just hang here," Ranboo suggested. "She gets home in a few minutes."

Tommy was about to say something when a loud static sound echoed through the hidden speakers. "Ranboo? Are you home? Can you open the gates please?"

"Wow. Isn't that a convenient coincidence."

The three of them walked to the front door. Ranboo entered the password, opening the gates and letting Niki inside. "Oh, good, Fundy was telling the truth," Niki said when she spotted Tommy and Tubbo. "I was worried he left you two in a box somewhere beside the road," she laughed. 

"Niki!" Tubbo exclaimed. "You have _the_ most perfect timing. We were just about to see you to ask something."

"Oh, is that so?" Niki raised her eyebrows in curiosity. "Well, ask away!"

"How do you feel about meeting with someone," Tommy said.

"Umm, why, exactly?"

"They, uhh," Tubbo started. "They know you from like a long long time ago, but are scared to talk to you so we're setting him up!"

"In short, guy's a pussy," Tommy said. "Imagine not being able to talk to women. Can't be me. I talk to multiple women in all occasions!"

Tommy's comment went ignored.

"Well, if they're a friend of yours,: Niki trailed off, "Sure, why not."

"Great! Then tomorro—"

Tubbo was interrupted by Niki, "Oh, I'm sorry. I can't tomorrow. Or anytime this week actually."

"What? Why?" Tommy asked, eyebrows furrowing.

"It's quite busy at the bakery," she stared. "You know, with the Town Festival coming up. we have quite the load of orders."

"Oh, that sounds great actually," Tubbo said.

"Well, if you can't meet tomorrow, maybe after teh festival then?" Tommy asked.

"Definitely."

"Then we'll see you then!" Tubbo said making his way to the door.

"We're gonna go tell the big man!" Tommy followed Tubbo's lead.

"Alright, bye!" NIki said.

"Bye!" Ranboo waved at them.

"Bye Niki!" Tubbo yelled back.

"See ya Ranboob!"

Ranboo was about to yell something back, but cut himself off by running his hand on his face. A muffled groan of annoyance escaped his mouth. Besides him, Niki was trying hard not to show it, but the girl was giggling her heart out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NEXT CHAPTER! Random fun times with Tommy, Tubbo and the ghosts!
> 
> Thank you for reading! Comments and suggestions are appreciated.
> 
> -LuminaStarCrest


	19. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you everyone for the support that you give this story! I love and appreciate every single one of you❤️
> 
> WARNING!! Child Abandonment

"WHAT THE FUCK?" Tommy yelled as he stood up from his seat. "There is no fucking way that you managed to roll perfectly the past four turns!" 

"What can I say," Techno shrugged his shoulders. "I'm just really good at everythin' that I do."

"There's no such thing as dice throwing skills! I refuse to believe that," Tubbo said as he rolled the die again, it landed on one. "What the hell?"

"What? You'd rather believe that he's just really lucky, huh, Tubbo?" WIlbur asked. 

Tommy faced Wilbur, "Why are you on his side? You're literally in last place right now."

"I'd rather lose to Techno than to a literal child," Wilbur said.

"Oh you fucked up, bitch!" Tommy said. "I _will_ find a way to punch you—"

"I heard that one before—"

"Tubbo you can't roll the die agai—"

"I can and I wil—"

Phil watched as the four bicker back and fort before sighing, "I asked to have a game night so we can just chill. It's fuckin' Snakes and Ladders!"

"Side with me here, Phil," Wilbur said, completely ignoring the older man's words. "You saw Tommy Innit kick the table so that the die would land on a three instead of a five."

"Ha! I win!" Tubbo suddenly exclaimed as he placed his piece at the squared labeled 100.

Tommy sighed as he dropped down to the couch, "I hate playing with you guys."

"...So," Techno started, "Who wants to play Monopoly"

"No!" Phil scolded. "Wilbur put that back in the box." 

Wilbur pouted and put the board back inside the box, placing it on the stack of board games that Phil found in the basement. 

"Tubbo, put your piece back," Phil said.

"Aww, but Phil," Tubbo complained, but did so anyways. 

"Now," Phil crossed his arms and gave them a stern look. "We are going to play this game, nice and fair, got it?'

"Yeah."

They didn't get it.

"Oops," Tommy said when he 'accidentally' knocked over his piece. He picked it up from the carpet and placed it two squares forward.

"Alright, listen here you little shit," Wilbur faced the young blond.

"'ey, 'ey I ain't doin' nothing wrong!" Tommy said in defense.

"Tommy, you literally just tried to cheat in front of us," Phil said.

"Let's make it fair then." Techno grabbed the die and rolled it on the coffee table. "Oh, will you look at that, I rolled a 52." He brought his piece to the last square, "I guess I win."

"That is not how you fucking count," Tubbo said. 

"I'm an _English_ major," Techno said. "What do ya want from me?"

Phil let out an exasperated sigh, "I am gonna punt this game straight to the fucking sun."

"Alright, alright, everyone's getting a bit heated up," Wilbur chuckled at the situation. "Why don't we do something else?"

"We can always just look at those photo albums that I found in my room," Phil smirked as he phased through the ceiling 

"No," Techno drawled the word out. 

"Tell those photo albums to fuck off," Wilbur called after Phil.

"Aww, it's just photo albums," Tubbo said.

"Yeah, we already looked at your secondary school pictures Wil," Tommy started. "How much worse could baby pictures be?"

"Oh, some of these are stolen shots and they look horrible in them." Phil descended once more holding a couple of photo albums.

"Woah, you can make things phase too?" Tubbo asked.

"Yeah," Phil said. "It's like how we make things float. Transfer a bit of energy to the items so that it will register as part of me." He placed the items on the table, which were snagged by both Tommy and Tubbo instantly.

Tommy flipped through the pages which was mostly Techno and Wilbur inside a house—which oddly enough, didn't look like the one they were in right now. "Hey Phil, whose house is this?"

"Oh, that was my parents house," Phil said. "I used to live there—In fact Techno and Wilbur turned up at that house's doorstep."

"Ohh, give us backstory Phil!" Tubbo said.

Phil chuckled, "Alright. I was twenty-six at that time, I was helping with the farm..."

"Wait you had a far—"

***

Phil was a twenty-six year old man who was helping with the family business—running the farm. His parents were quite old at the time, so almost everything was done by him.

One night, as he was harvesting the corn, strange crunching of rocks caught his attention. It was strange to say the least. The area where they live in was composed of at most nine other houses, all at least half an hour away from each other. So someone coming over during the night was unusual. 

Phil walked away from the plot of land, lantern in hand, and went to investigate. It was a stupid decision of his—he admits. The sound could have been a killer's and he could have died right then and there. He couldn't have been more wrong. 

Just outside the fence of their land, stood two children. Two shivering children. They were wearing shorts and thin shirts, the only thing that could possibly be providing them warmth was the Red cloak that they shared. Phil, being the ever sympathetic person that he was, couldn't help but open the fence gate and crouch in front of the two boys. 

"Hey kiddos, what are you doing out here so late?" He asked the two in a gentle manner. 

The shorter of the two sent a light glare at Phil as he held the other's arm tighter. The taller one looked at the other and whispered something that Phil couldn't quite work out. The tall one looked back at him, "I think we got abandoned," he said.

Phil—to say the least—was shocked. "Abandoned?"

"Our parents left us, what do you think it means?" snapped the shorter boy whose eyes were glossed by tears that were threatening to fall. 

"Techno," the other scolded. 

"Well, uhh, do you two want to come in? It;s warmer inside, we can umm, talk there," Phil asked. He had no idea what to do. School didn't teach him how to handle two children that suddenly appear by his house. All he knew was it was freezing out. 

The two looked at each other then looked around. It wasn't like they had a choice anyway, so they nodded and followed the man. Phil opened the door to the house, and the children were immediately met with warmth that they would gladly melt into.

"Come in," Phil ushered the two inside. "You can sit by the fireplace," he pointed to the couch at the said area, "I'll get you two something warm to drink."

Phil watched the two walk inside—still not removing the cloak that they had—and sat where he had told them too. Satisfied, Phil went to the kitchen to make some hot chocolate. Once he came back, the two were still bundled upon each other, but they looked warmer than they did before. "Here," he handed them each a mug. "Careful, it's hot."

"Obviously," the one named Techno muttered. "We're ten, not four."

"My bad." Phil figured that it would be better to just agree with them for now. "So, umm, my name's Philza, you can call me Phil," he said expecting the two to introduce themselves to him as well.

"Nice to meet ya," the taller said before taking a sip at the hot chocolate. Techno did the same, both of them staring at him as they did so. 

"Umm, names, please?" Phil said. 

"I'm Wilbur," the taller boy said, "this is Techno," he gestured to the other boy. "We're twins," the last line was said with a hint of pride in it.

Phil nodded, "Mind telling me what happened to you two?" The lighter atmosphere immediately dropped—if Phil didn't know any better he would have thought that the flames from the fireplace died.

"Like we said earlier, I think we were abandoned," Wilbur said. "They said we were going somewhere special—which was weird because they don't really do good things like that."

"They dropped us off a little pass from here," Techno explained, "When we were off the car, the doors shut then it sped away."

Wilbur sipped some more hot chocolate before continuing their story, "There was nothing else around, so we went the way we came from and this house was the first thing we saw."

While Phil listened to the two, he realized that they're real mature for ten year olds. What could have the parents been thinking. If they couldn't be decent human beings, the least they could have done was bring these two to an orphanage or something. But then again, they could have ended up in one of those shitty type of orphanages.

"Mr. Philza," Wilbur said catching his attention. "Can we please stay here for the night?" he had asked. "Just tonight. Me and Techno can go back to walking to the city first thing in the morning,

Phil took one look at these children and he immediately knew what he was going to do. "Do you really want to go back to the city? Do you know any relatives of yours you can go to?"

"...I don't think we have relatives?" Wilbur said, his eyebrows furrowing as he thought about it.

"Even if we did, it's not like we know them," Techno grumbled. 

"I can't just bring you to the city without knowing where you two were going," Phil said. 

"Well, what do you suggest we do?" Techno asked.

"...I guess you can stay here?" Phil asked.

Wilbur huffed out a laugh, "Nice try Mr. Philza," he said. "Why would you let two random kids that turned up outside your place stay in your house?"

"Because you're exactly that. _Kids_ that turned up at a strangers house, seeking shelter," Phil said. "Our family isn't rich or anything, but we have a spare bedroom that you could share, and more than enough money to sustain two children." 

"That's nice and all, but what's the catch?" Techno asked.

"...What catch?" Phil asked.

"You can't expect us to stay here for free," Wilbur said. "We could umm help with the farm...wait we don't know how a farm works," he whispered.

"He can teach us," Techno said.

"Woah, hold on, you don't have to do anything—just don't burn down the house or something—but other than that you're fine."

"But we can't just...we can't..." Wilbur trailed off.

Phil sighed, "Look, if it makes you feel better, you'll still do typical ten year old household chores," he tried. 

"...okay..." they said.

"But," Wilbur perked up, "If you don't decide to throw us out in the long run..."

"You let us help with the farm?" Techno continued.

These two were determined to prove their worth before agreeing to stay, that much was obvious. Phil knows that ten year olds would rather lay around than ask for more things to do—at least, he did—so he figured this had something to do with their parents. Phil wanted to ask about them, but he figured now wasn't the time. It was getting late and the two were getting sleepy. "Alright," he gave in. "Do we have a deal boys?"

Techno and Wilbur looked at each other, then back at Phil.

"Deal."

***

"Well that was a shitty arse childhood," Tommy commented.

Techno huffed, "Tell me about it."

"Well, I'd rather be abandoned and be led to Phil than have stayed with those petty excuse of parents," Wilbur said, venom in his voice. 

"Wait, did you ever tell your parents that you basically adopted two random kids?" Tubbo asked.

"'course, mate. The next morning I told them about it and they were cool with it," Phil said.

"Man, I wonder what's it like to live in a farm," Tommy said as he flipped through the photo album—laughing when he saw a picture of Techno down on the ground after a horse startled him. "I'd get a Llama and name it Clarencio, and maybe three chickens and name them all Clementine."

"I thought you wanted a moth named Clementine?" Tubbo asked.

"I can name everyone and everything Clementine and the world would thank me for it," Tommy retorted. 

Wilbur was going to say something when a loud alarm pierced their ears. "Ah, shit," Tubbo said. "It's already 8 pm, we should get going." Tubbo stood up, followed by Tommy.

"Yeah, no one wants to stay out pass 9 pm," Tommy said. "Not when I could possibly down an alleyway with a knife."

Wilbur groaned, "Get going will you."

Tommy stuck his tongue out at Wilbur as they said their goodbyes.

"Be careful out there!" 

***

Tommy and Tubbo were chatting as they emerged from the trees of the forest. "Hey, do you think its possible that Ranboo and Niki lived near Phil's farm?" Tubbo asked.

"Now that's a huge arse coincidence, innit?"

"Well—"

A loud whooshing sound made Tubbo stop talking. "What the hell was that?" He asked.

There came another whoosh, and another, and another. From the corner of Tommy's eye he could see blurs of brown swishing around in the air. 

"What the fuck!" Tommy yelled as the blurs of brown became clearer. They were floating brown robed, hooded, men? He wasn't sure since people don't fucking float. "Tubbo, we have to run. RUN TUBBO!"

They started to run. Tubbo—having shorter strides—was being pulled by Tommy as to not let the brunet fall behind.

"Where do we go?" Tommy yelled as he was scanning the area. There were just a bunch of houses, no people in sight.

"Turn, turn!" Tubbo yelled as they neared a pedestrian lane.

Tommy went left. He turned around and saw that the hooded men were still on their tail.

Tubbo, who was still facing forward, perked up. "NIKI! NIKI!" He called for the blond woman who was about to lock the door to her bakery.

Niki turned around and her eyes widen at the sight. Tommy and Tubbo were running towards her. A bunch of hooded men chasing them.

She quickly grabbed a pen and a slip. "Boys! Inside the bakery, now!" She ushered them inside and locked the door. She wrote something on the slip of paper, and began chanting something under her breath.

"Begone!" She yelled as she threw the slip—which let out a bright light—at the direction of the hooded men. They let out a shrill shriek before they frantically scattered and disappeared.

Niki let out a breath. She looked around to see if anything else was out there, and when she found none, she unlocked the door and walked inside.

"Are you two alright?" She asked as she kneeled down to the boys who were slumped on the floor.

"Niki...what the hell was that?!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... that happened. You got a backstory, which wasn't planned at all. 
> 
> As I was writing this chapter, I realized that the only thing that I planned to happen was the games and the chase and that would have made a very very short chapter. So my brain said "Throw in some backstory and you'll be fiineee."... So I did.
> 
> Anyway. NEXT CHAPTER! Hooded men, explained! Kinda! Ghosty bois find out and want to investigate. New familiar character!
> 
> Thank you for reading! Comments and suggestions are appreciated.
> 
> -LuminaStarCrest


	20. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> YOOOO! Chapter drop! Thank you everyone for all the support that you give this story. I appreciate it lots! I hope you enjoy this chapter!

"Niki...what the hell was that?!"

Niki looked at the two boys who were out of breath on the floor of her bakery. "Those—those were Reapers," she said.

"Wait, like Grim Reapers?" Tubbo asked, alarmed. "Oh god, are we dying?"

"What? No!" Niki exclaimed, "You're fine, you're fine."

"Then why's the fucking Grim Reaper after us?" Tommy asked as he stood up, offering his hand to help Tubbo.

"Reapers and Grim Reapers are different," Niki said. "You know about the psychic thing right?" she asked as she took Tommy's and and stood up. The boys nodded at her question. "We studied about them and apparently, the _Grim_ Reaper is the spirit-like being that follows people who are dying soon and then reaps their souls. Reapers on the other hand are like guards of the Ghost Realm," she sighed. "I don't know why they're after the two of you though." 

"How did you do the light thing?" Tubbo asked.

"The light thing?" Niki said. "Oh! That's umm something for defense. Dealing with spirits are sometimes dangerous, so we were taught enchantments and stuff." She pulled out slips of paper and pen from her pocket. "I always carry these with me just in case."

Tubbo let out a nervous chuckle, "Lucky us then."

Tommy looked out the glass panes of the bakery, "Do you think they're waiting to jump us or some shit?"

"That's possible," she said.   
  
"How the fuck are we gonna go home then?" Tommy asked.

Niki hummed as she began to think, "Oh! I can always do this." She walked over behind the counter and pulled a drawer open. Her eyes scanned the trinkets and smiled as she picked two out of the bunch. She always had some just in case Eret comes by for extra stuff for the business.

"What are you doing?" Tubbo asked as he walked closer to the counter, Tommy doing the same.

"Just putting protective enchantments." She wrote a single character on two small slips, before placing them on the back side of the trinkets she chose. She muttered something under her breath and the slips began to emit a light before disappearing completely. Niki smiled and handed the two the trinkets. 

Tommy took the trinket and observed it. It was a necklace, a compass with a green needle at the end. "Hey, we match!" Tubbo exclaimed showing his own compass, only his had a red needle. 

"Just wear those at all times," Niki said with a smile. "They should keep those Reapers at bay." Tommy and Tubbo were skeptical, but hey, if they hang out in a house with ghosts, why would they question this.

So they left the bakery. They looked around and there weren't any signs of those Reapers so they proceeded to go to their respective houses. 

This was going to be an interesting story to tell the next day.

***

"What the hell? What do you mean you got chased by fucking Reapers?" Wilbur asked, worry evident in his features. 

"Aren't those supposed to be like guards?" Phil asked.

Techno hummed in a yes, "Why would they be after you guys though?"

"Like hell we know," Tommy said as he leaned back on his seat. "You tell us, you're the one whose dead."

"Are you sure there wasn't any other ghosts where you were?" Wilbur asked. "They could have been after a ghost that managed to attach themselves to you."

"We didn't see anything," Tubbo said. "Then again, ghosts don't really show themselves to us willingly remember?"

"Ah fuck," Wilbur said facepalmed. "We're too used to you two interacting with us so much that we keep forgetting that you two are humans."

"Can't you guys check if there really wasn't any ghosts?" Tubbo asked. 

"Mate, we can't leave the forest remember?" Phil said.

"Techno said that there was a way right?" Tommy said. "Why can't you just try that?"

"Like I said, it's a theory," Techno said. "Why do you think we haven't tried it before?"

Wilbur then clapped his hands in realization. "Techno! Remember that guy you sensed?" 

"That guy—what?" Tommy furrowed his eyebrows.

"Remember when you two came here with those two girls last Halloween?" Wilbur asked.

"Yeah, what about it?" Tubbo asked.

"That girl with the smile-y mask had a ghost companion," Techno said.

"Ah!" Tommy stood up form his seat. "The 'I know who it is,' bit that you said back then?" 

Techno nodded. "Ghosts are supposedly bound but that guy managed to accompany the girl around," he said. "So, I'm guessin' he figured out how to do it."

"Surely you could just ask him right?" Tubbo asked.

"That'll require social interaction," Techno groaned.

"C'mon Techno," Wilbur wrapped an arm around Techno's shoulders. "After we investigate we could start exploring and shit." He used his other hand to make Techno face him. "You have no idea how long I've been wanting to leave this house."

"Yeah Techno, stop being such a pussy," Tommy said. 

Techno let out a mixed sigh and groan, "The things I do—" he disappeared wit a loud pop.

***  
  
Techno opened his eyes to the Ghost Realm. The Gate Room to be specific—it's a place where ghosts can find all the portals to the places they are bound to. Techno nodded at the brown haired guy who was watching the portals at the time before heading off.

If he was being honest, the realm doesn't look that different from Earth. It has building and houses, only these were painted in all white and gray—heck everything is white and gray. Kind of annoying really, sometimes Techno would walk straight into a wall because it blended into the background. 

The only other color that you can see in the realm are the 'clothes' that the ghost were 'wearing'. Lucky for Techno, the color he's looking for is easy to spot. Not a lot of people die wearing a bright Green hoodie. 

He floated around, going to areas the he think the other boy would be at—it was a lot of areas. Techno remembered that he likes to wander a lot—doesn't really sit still. But he found him eventually. Techno climbed the white steps up to the gray rooftop of a building. "Hello!" The boy greeted, not turning around but instead watching the realm from where he stood. 

"Dream," Techno said.

"What brings you here Technoblade?" Dream asked. "You're not usually in the Ghost Realm."

"Uhuh, and you seem to enjoy just wanderin' around don't you?" Techno started. "Wanderin' around Earth?" he raised an eyebrow at the other.

Dream smirks, "So you did see me, I expected nothing less." He faced the other, leaning back on the gray rails, "Now, are you going to answer my question?"  
  
"Just wonderin' how you were able to do that," Techno said. "Then again, you're probably tired of being homeless—"

"For the last time," Dream groaned in annoyance, " just because I'm not bound to my house doesn't mean I'm homeless!"

"Sure, sure," Techno smirked. 

Dream narrowed his eyes at the other before sighing. "It's a ritual like thing. You know how you can only go to the places you're bound to?" he asked. Techno nodded, prompting the other to continue. "Well, in theory, transferring that binding energy to an item is possible. You just gotta find someone to do it or you." 

"You mean get a psychic?" Techno asked.   
  
"Basically. If you find someone experienced enough, they'll most probably know how to do it," Dream said. 

Techno hummed, and began thinking—"But!"—His head snapped back up to Dream. "I wouldn't advice it. The psychic that I asked went missing a few days after the exchange." Dream tilted his head to the side a bit, "Then again, I can't be sure if that disappearance is correlated."

"Well," Dream lifted himself up to sit on the rails. "That's all I have and I think that's all you came for," he said. He gave a light salute as a goodbye and leaned backwards, floating off—down the building.

Techno rolled his eyes at the other's dramatic exit before heading back to the Gate Room, thinking about the last bit of Dream's words. Techno didn't mind it though, thinking that Dream was just messing with him. Once he was back at teh Gate Room, he walked around, scanning the portals—looking at the glimpses of the locations they were connected to. He arrived at the area that was marked his. He had three portals in total. One for the forest, and two for specific binds. He entered the one for the house.

***

"Aww Wilbur you dickhead," Tommy said. "Why would you get that? That was the one I was getting." Tommy moved his head around trying to find a new block to get from the Jenga Tower. 

Wilbur chuckled, "How was I supposed to know? It wasn't like you told me."

Tommy ignored him and smirked when he got the block without making the tower fall. He carefully began placing it back on the to—POP!

"FUCK YOU!" Tommy yelled at Techno who startled him with the loud sound when he got back from the Ghost Realm.

"Have you tried not sucking at the game?" Techno asked as he floated over to the living room.

"You did this!" Tommy said.

Techno hummed, "Pretty sure you were the one holding the block."

'How'd it go mate?" Phil asked.

"Did you ask him?" Tubbo sat up straight from the couch he was watching the game from.

Technoblade nodded, "We need a psychic."

Tommy laughed, "Oh do we know where to get one of those!"

"We could ask Ranboo," Tubbo suggested.

Techno shook his head, "Dream said they had to be an experienced. I doubt a year of training would qualify for what we're doing."

Tommy and Tubbo sighed in disappointment. "Well, we can't ask Niki, she'd only been learning for one year too," Tubbo said. "We can try asking Fundy, but for some reason I don't think he'll do it."  
  
Tommy hummed and closed his eyes as he began thinking before snapping them back open. "There's always the Eret person Ranboo mentioned."

Tubbo snapped his fingers, "Oh yeah!"

The ghosts watched as teh two brainstormed. "So, you guys know someone?" Wilbur asked.

"We think so," Tubbo nodded.

"You think you can convince them to help us?" Phil asked.

Tubbo sighed, "We'll see..."  
  
"But hey!" Tommy started. 

"If they say no, we can always annoy them enough 'til they agree!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dream finally makes his first official appearance, you'll see more of him in the future. Thank you everyone for the support and kind words that you give❤.
> 
> NEXT CHAPTER! Convincing a psychic. Appearance of a new familiar character, you know who it is *winks*
> 
> Thank you for reading! Comments and suggestions are appreciated.
> 
> -LuminaStarCrest


	21. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you everyone for all the support you give this story. I appreciate every single read, kudos, comment, bookmark, anything! ❤
> 
> NOTE: Eret uses any pronouns! Just a little PSA to avoid confusion because the pronouns that I use for Eret switches every now and then.

"Ranboo, you gotta help us man!"

Ranboo jumped back. "What the heck?" He asked as he stared at the two teens—fresh out of classes and still carrying their school bags—who suddenly jumped out of an alleyway that was near his school as he was walking pass it. "Why were you two hiding in an alleyway?"

"You and your fancy private school uniforms and shit makes the two of us stand out too much," Tommy said. "So we decided to lay low." He said, crouching down slightly to make his point.

"And you decided, alleyway?" Ranboo raised an eyebrow. "One where you could have definitely been stabbed if given such luck?"

"Ranboo, you worry about alleyways too much," Tubbo stated.

"Yeah," Tommy nodded. "And if there _was_ a a guy 'bout to jump us," he rummaged through his pockets. "I have this!" he pulled out a pocket knife.

"Okay!" Ranboo exclaimed, pushing Tommy's hand downwards slowly. "Let's keep that for self-defense." Once he was sure Tommy wouldn't have accidentally stab someone, he asked, "So, what's so urgent that you decided to come and meet me at school rather than at the bakery?"

"We need you to introduce us to Eret!" Tubbo said.

"Ummm...why?" Ranboo tilted his head.

"We need to ask him about something."

"Can't we just meet someone without ulterior motives?"

Both Ranboo and Tubbo gave Tommy a look. "What?" Tommy asked, his voice raising a pitch. 

"Anyway," Tubbo continued. "Can you take is to him?"

"Yeah, I would, but I think they're at the tent and—"

"That's perfect then!" Tubbo said. "We're actually going to as him about some ghost stuff."

Ranboo looked conflicted, but eventually let out a sigh. "I don't know why you guys are so invested in learning about ghosts when you're literally friends with three," he started, "but, yeah, alright. Follow me." Ranboo turned around and began walking the other way.

They continued walking and when they passed the five minute mark, Tubbo groaned. "Are we there yet?" 

"We've literally been walking for five minutes," Tommy said looking back at the brunet who was lightly falling behind.

"Aww, but it's so hard keeping up with you guys," Tubbo complained. "You walk too fast."

"Oh, that's just 'cause you're short," Ranboo stated as he, too, looked back at the brunet, just in time to receive a glare. To which Tommy responded with his signature laugh. 

"Where are we going anyway?" Tubbo asked as he observed his surroundings. "You tell us off for hanging out in alleyways then lead us into one?" 

"H—hey, I actually know where this one lead to alright?" Ranboo defended. 

At the end of the alleyway was a tent—or the entrance to one at least. "Why is this thing hidden in a fuckin' alleyway?" Tommy asked as he followed Ranboo inside. 

The inside of the tent was spacious. It had multiple shelves and tables, which was quite odd—Tommy and Tubbo expected the place to be small with just a single table and a crystal ball. 

"Our customers are, umm, select," Ranboo said. "Eret! Are you here?" 

"Ranboo!" A voice came from behind the tent. A hand pushed open the back curtains to reveal a brown haired person wearing a crown and glasses. "Oh, who do you have with you?" Eret tilted his head to the side slightly to see the two boys behind Ranboo.

"These are Tubbo," Ranboo gestured to the brunet—"and Tommy,"—then to the blond. "I may have accidentally revealed that we're psychics, and they asked to see you!" He gave a nervous laugh.

Eret sighed and shook his head with a small smile, "It's alright Ranboo," they said. "Fundy actually ratted you out weeks ago."

Ranboo let out a sigh, "Why am I not surprised."

"So!" Eret began. "What can I do for you two?"

"We have, umm ghost issues..." Tubbo trailed off.

"Do you want to get rid of them or something?" Eret asked.

"No!"

"Are you insane?!"

"Ahh," Eret gave an nervous chuckle at the outburst of the two. "Family ghost?" Eret tried again.

"Not quite," Tubbo said. "They're more of ghost friends!" He smiled.

Eret laughed, "That's not unheard of, but rare," she started. "Ghosts tend not to show themselves to people, and when they do, it's usually to family members," she said. "Well, if they're your friends, what's the issue?"

"Do you know anyway they can uhh," Tommy glanced up as he thought of words, "get out of their bound areas?"

Eret perked up at the question, "Get out of their bound areas? I mean, yeah, I do," he said.

"Then you can—"

Eret raised a finger, "Dealing with ghosts is tricky business. _Why_ do you want to know about that?"

Tommy and Tubbo glanced at each other, "The ghosts just want to go look at some stuff and go exploring and shit," Tommy answered.

Eret raised an eyebrow, "and that's it?" He asked.

"Yeah," Tubbo smiled. "We just want to hang with them out of the forest 'cause it was getting kinda stuffy there."

Eret hummed, still not convince if should do this.

"'ey, we _are_ paying customers ya know," Tommy said with a smirk. 

"You _do_ know that we can deny a customer our service, right?" Ranboo asked.

"Well that's a shit way to run a business," Tommy said.

"It's not, actually," Ranboo said.

"Alright, you know what," Eret started. "As long as you do nothing else, I'll do it."

"You would?"

"I honestly thought this would have more screaming involved."

Eret walked to one of the tables and pulled out a journal, briefly reading through it in his mind. "For this ritual to work, I would need an item from the ghost," they said.

"An item from the ghost?" Tubbo asked. "Like a shirt or something?"

"Well, yes, but not exactly," Eret said. "It needs to hold significance to the ghost," Eret hummed as she thought of an example. "Think of like a ghost that is a married woman, a possible item of their's could be a wedding ring."

"What if they died wearing it or something?" Tommy asked. 

"Anything can have enough sentiment in it if the ghost believes that it does," Eret said. 

"You should just ask them what they think is a significant item to them," Ranboo suggested. "That should work, I think." Eret nodded at Ranboo's suggestion.

"Alright, we'll go and ask the ghosts then," Tommy said hurriedly, and grabbed Tubbo's wrist and began leading the brunet out of the tent. 

Just before they could touch the curtain, a fake cough made them stop walking. "Let's talk about payment, shall we? You are paying customers after all, are you not?" Eret asked.

***

"This psychic thing is gonna make us broke as fuck," Tommy said as he and Tubbo were making their way back to the forest.

Tubbo let out an awkward laugh, "Well, at least they were considerate about it," he said, remembering what Eret told them.

_"The fuck?! It costs that much?" Tommy yelled._

_"Unfortunately," Eret said. "But I guess, you can pay part of it every month until you can pay it fully," he said. "Call it a treat. You are friends with Ranboo after all."_

"Still," Tommy started. "That's a shot ton of money," he sighed. 

The two reached the forest entrance and Tubbo pulled out the map from his pocket—even after almost three months they still sometimes get lost, so they just use the map to avoid wasting time. As Tubbo grabbed the map, an item fell off his pocket. He crouched down and picked it up. 

"Oh," Tubbo said. "I almost didn't to bring this with me today. I just stuffed it in my pocket and forgot to actually wear it." Tubbo clasped the compass necklace around his neck. "You're still wearing your's right?" He asked and continued to walk.

"Yeah." Tommy pulled the necklace from under his shirt as he followed Tubbo. "Don't want those motherfuckers following us again." He peeked behind him for reassurance.

The two eventually reached the house and Tommy pushed the door open. The house was empty. _Weird._

"Where do you think they are?" Tubbo asked. "We did tell them that we'll be here around this time right?"

Tommy hummed in a yes. "They'll turn up at some point. Let's just go see the bees," he said in a tone that radiates boredom.

Tubbo chuckled, "You're really bummed out about the money aren't ya Big T?"

Tommy just let out a groan.

***

It has been nearly an hour and the ghosts _still_ haven't gotten back. "Where the fuck are they?" Tommy asked as he took seat on the couch. "Think they forgot?"

"Doubt it," Tubbo said, sitting across the blond. "I mean, let's be real, the 'investigation' won't be happening. It's been days and the Reaper dudes haven't come back for us or something. I doubt a ghost latched itself to us," he said. "This just turned out to be a ticket for them to leave the forest."

Tommy hummed, "Yeah, WIlbur was excited as fuck when Techno said that they can leave if the ritual thing was done," he said. "If they didn't forget, then where the fuck are they? It isn't hard for them to just teleport back here."

"Uhuh, about that chief," a voice came from the front door. The two turned their heads just in time to see Wilbur phase through the door. "For some reason, we can't use the portals to teleport." Following him inside where Phil and Techno. 

"What? So you can't do the pop thing whenever you go to the Ghost Realm?" Tommy asked.

"We can still go to the Ghost Realm, but we can't leave through the portals of our specific binds," Phil started. "We had to go through the forest portal, which just brings us back to where we were _before_ going to the Ghost Realm."

"We tried a couple more times, before just giving up and floated back to the house," Techno said. "The portals were probably just being cringe. The guy managing them said he'd look into it."

"Well, you can always just try again tomorrow or something," Tubbo said. "Doubt that you'd be doing that though."

Techno raised an eyebrow, "Why?"

"Guess who convinced a psychic to do a fuckin' ritual!" Tommy exclaimed.

Wilbur perked up, "No fucking way! You actually did it?" 

"I'm more concerned about the fact that someone agreed to do a ritual for a couple of 16 year old," Phil said. 

"Well, I mean, we're friends with Ranboo and Niki, and we've talked to Fundy a couple of times," Tubbo said. "I think that boosted us quite a lot."

"Well, what did he say?" Techno asked.

"Apparently we need a thing of your's," Tommy started. 

"An item that holds significance," Tubbo continued. "Have anything like that?"

The three thought about it, before looking at each other then at the two.

"I have something in mind."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nothing much happened really, but I hope you enjoyed it!
> 
> NEXT CHAPTER! The five of them go around the house looking for the items and they discover some more about the ghosts' farm history.
> 
> TAKE A GUESS! So, what do you guys think are the items? I mean, I think you already know, or at least have an idea of what it is but here, have a clue: They're all wearable.
> 
> Thank you for reading! Comment and suggestions are appreciated.
> 
> -LuminaStarCrest


	22. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eyyy!! I'm back with another chapter! I hope this was worth the wait. Thank you everyone for being patient and supportive!

"...Are you going to tell us what it is or are you just gonna keep floating there, trying to be mysterious and shit?" Tommy asked the ghosts.

"Well, there's always my bucket hat," Phil said as he glanced up. "I was wearing it when I died, but I have another one around here. Will that work?"

"Eret says as long as you believe that it is precious to you, it'll work," Tubbo said.

Wilbur made a face, "What kind of TV show bullshit is that?"

"Hey, beats me," Tubbo raised his hands, "I'm not the one who made the ritual."

"What about you Wilbur?" Tommy asked.

"I'd say my beanie, but as you can see," Wilbur gestured to his head. "I'm also wearing it, and unlike Phil here, I don't buy the same things twice."

Techno huffed, "Tell that to your yellow sweaters, you hypocrite."

Wilbur glared at the other, "I bought two! Phil has four of the same hat!" He said. "But yeah, I'd say the yellow sweater is a good substitute. Besides this one that I'm wearing is barely used, so I'd say the other one holds more significance to my now non-existent life."

Tommy turned to the pink haired ghost, "Well, what's it gonna be Blade?"

Techno hummed, "I have a crown and a cape. Take your pick, I guess."

Tubbo perked up, "Can we get the cape? That sounds cooler." Techno shrugged his shoulders.

"Alright, I think my cape's somewhere in my room," Techno said. "Probably in the closet, Tommy _did_ stuff everything there."

"My sweater's in my closet, that I'm sure of," Wilbur said. 

"Well, Techno, Tubbo, and I will look for the cape 'cause there's a lot of shit in Techno's closet," Phil started. "You and Tommy get your sweater"

With that, the two groups split off—one going to Techno's room, the other to Wilbur's. 

Techno opened his closet door and stared as the items inside immediately flowed down to the floor. "Right, this looks like this."

"We never got around to uncluttering it huh?" Tubbo said, " _Why_ is your special item a cape or crown anyway?" 

Techno hummed as he sorted through all the junk, "Had it when I was in middle school for a play."

"He was this brutal fighter with a 'Blood God' alias," Phil explained, helping the pink-haired male look.

"Best role I've ever got."

"He didn't even have to act," Phil chuckled. "Most people are terrified of Techno already anyway."

"Why?" Tubbo asked with a nervous laugh as he set another book to the side.

"Gotten into too many fights, won every single one of them, then yeah, bunch of losers started to get scared," Techno said.

"Oh," Tubbo said. "Okay then."

It was silent for a moment.

"Hey...uhh, do you guys mind sharing a bit of what you guys remember?" Tubbo asked.

"Why'd you want to know?" Phil raised an eyebrow.

"I—just curious, ya know," Tubbo said. "I mean, at least with Wil, I know his other specialized bond, but nothing on you two."

"Well, what do you wanna know?" Techno asked.

"What do you guys remember?"

Techno hummed, looking over to Phil—who nodded his head,"Not much. There's umm, a cave, machete, bloody water, red."

"Wait, that's it?" Tubbo tilted his head with a confused look.

"Look kid, I have no clue why there's barely anythin' around that gives me glimpses of my memories," Techno sighed. "If you think that's little, you should hear Phil's."

Tubbo looked at the semi-transparent figure floating above him, expectantly. Phil's eyes looked away as he spoke, "I—I haven't been remembering anything."

"That's possible?" Tubbo asked.

"Apparently," Phil said, looking in the closet rather than at Tubbo. "Hold on, is that it?"

"I'll get it." Tubbo stood up and rummaged through a box at the corner of the closet. "Yup! I think this is it!" He emerged wearing the cape around his shoulders. "I was right, this is _so_ cool."

"Why were you going through my shit, Tommy!"

"I was looking for a fuckin' blanket!"

"What did you two do now?" Phil asked as he, Techno and Tubbo went towards Wilbur's room.

"I was looking for the sweater, yeah? I couldn't find it," Wilbur explained. "Turns out this fucker was messing with my stuff and threw the sweater at some corner."

"I found it for you didn't I?" Tommy said.

"You found the thing, let's just find Phil's. Why are you so mad anyway?" Techno said.

"He found my journal, and read through it," Wilbur glared at Tommy.

"Oh."

Phil sighed, "It's alright Wil, they were bound to know more about ghost shit. I'm surprised they didn't pestered us sooner."

"What's wrong with knowing ghost shit?" Tubbo asked.

"We were advised not to let humans know much about us, especially unfinished business, business," Wilbur said.

"Why?"

"No clue, man," Wil sighed. "If Phil's chill with it, then I guess it's fine."

"Does that mean I'm off the hook?" Tommy asked.

"Yeah, whatever," Wilbur said, making Tommy grin.

"Let's start looking for Phil's," Techno said. "All this being tangible is tiring."

Tubbo faced the blond man "Where's this hat of your's Phil?"

"I'd say in the basement," Phil crossed his arms across his chest, "with all our old stuff that we didn't unpack when we moved." With that the five of them headed to the basement.

"Damn, you guys live like this?" Tubbo asked as he stepped over a metal rod on the ground. The whole basement was cluttered with boxes and items. There was barely any space to walk through, forcing the ghosts to have some parts of their bodies phased through boxes.

"Does it count if we're dead?" Technoblade said.

"Also, might I remind you," Wilbur started, "you two were the ones who stuffed everything else in here."

"No it wasn't," Tommy said.

"Yes it was!"

"Well I say it wasn't."

Wilbur—knowing that retorting is what Tommy wanted him to do—stopped. "Let's just look for Phil's stupid hat." He started moving around the boxes, looking fir the ones with clothes in them.

"My hat isn't stupid," Phil said as he started looking around as well.

Tubbo started his search by opening the box closest to him. He should have probably read the box labels, but he didn't. The box was just filled with books—photo albums. "Hey, I found a bunch of pictures again."

"We're looking for a hat, Tubbo," Wilbur said as he searched through a box of clothes.

"Yeah, but look," Tubbo said as he flipped through the album. "Woah, you guys had a blue sheep?"

"I remember him," Techno huffed out a laugh. "This nerd over here—" he pointed to Wilbur—"named him Friend."

"Aww, you named him friend?" Tubbo said as he looked back at the photo.

Tommy let out a loud laugh from where he was rummaging through the boxes, "Oh Wilbur, you were one lonely arse child. Who the fuck gives 'Friend' as a name?"

"No, no," Wilbur defended, "I just wanted him to have a unique name."

"How the hell is 'Friend' a unique name?"

"Have you seen someone else named Friend?"

"He got ya there mate," Phil said, followed by a hearty laugh.

"Mimimimi," Tommy mocked as he went back to throwing clothes around.

"Tommy," Phil scolded, "Fold the clothes and set them aside neatly. You're gonna make the search more difficult."

"Aww, fuck this," Tommy dropped the shirt he was holding back into the box. "I'm gonna look at pictures too." The ghosts shook their heads, but let the two teenagers be. 

Tommy and Tubbo on the other hand were having fun with the photo albums. They laughed when they came across a picture of Technoblade. He looked like he was 13 maybe 14 in the picture, wearing a white shirt, brown trousers and a straw hat. His hands lowered to the soil, holding a spading fork—behind him, a sack filled with potatoes. 

"You really liked farming didn't you, Technoblade," Tubbo commented.

"I'd say it was an productive hobby," Techno said, not even bothering to look back at the two.

Wilbur, on the other hand turned around with a laugh, "He used to have a rivalry with this other kid near our house about who can harvest the most potatoes. After harvest time, the two would meet up and whoever had more potatoes—well, got bragging rights."

"I won, of course," Techno bragged.

"Yeah, nearly destroying the soil in the process," Phil sighed.

"Oh, hey, who's this kid?" Tubbo asked, showing the others a brown haired kid who was trying to get away from a llama, but failing because it was chewing on the back of the boy's shirt.

"I—I've never seen that kid, like, ever," Wilbur said, floating closer to take a better look.

Phil hummed as he observed the photo with arms crossed, "He looks familiar, but I know I have never seen him at the farm. Who even took this picture?"

"Oh," Techno said, finally looking at the album. "Yeah, that was me," he said. "Found that kid sneaking around the farm, and the llama caught him, so I took a picture."

He eyed the picture before, "Ah, Now I remember where I saw Ranboo from," Techno said.

"...are you gonna finish the sentence or..." Tubbo asked.

"That's Ranboo," He said, pointing at the picture. "I thought there was enough context for you to figure it out, but that's what I get from expectin'."

"How the fuck is that Ranboo?" Tommy asked, grabbing the album from Tubbo's hands and bringing it closer to his face.

"Wait, does that mean you're getting memories for your unfinished business?" Tubbo asked.

Techno hummed, "No, I think I just didn't realize that it was him 'cause of the hair."

Wilbur and Phil gave a disappointed sigh."Really thought you were onto something there," Wilbur said.

"Wait!" Tubbo exclaimed, "Do you think Niki's in any of these? She and Ranboo are siblings, so it isn't much of a stretch. Maybe that's where Wilbur remembers her from." 

"Tubbo, how did you know that I remember—"

"I told him," Tommy said. 

"Of course you did," He sighed.

"I'm gonna look," Tubbo said, standing up from the floor.

"I guess I'll go too," Tommy said, following Tubbo's lead.

The ghosts continued to look for Phil's hat, while the teens went through the photo albums.

"It's that farm agai—ey, who's your lady friend, huh Wilbur?" He asked, showing the other four the photo album.

The photograph showed a tree which was hallowed out, water can bee seen in the background. A young Wilbur was inside the tree, sitting on a picnic blanket with his legs crossed, smiling—teeth and all—his glasses slightly askew, and his right hand holding up a peace sign. To his left, there was a blond girl wearing glasses—hair tied in pigtails—who was sat on her knees, both hands up with her own peace signs, giving the camera a shy smile.

"I..." Wilbur tilted his head as he observed the picture. He feels like he knows who the girl was.He just couldn't put a na...me..."Is that...Niki?"

"Niki?" Both Tommy and Tubbo exclaimed looking back at the picture—she didn't have dual colored haired back then.

"Oh, yes, I remember Niki now," Phil commented.

"You know her?" Techno asked.

Phil nodded. "A neighbor brought her over once. Her father and I had a small discussion, and Wilbur here found her playing around in the cornfield." He looked back at the photo. "I took that picture. It's at umm, what did you call it again? Pond-tree?"

"Wait, if you knew her, why have you never told Wilbur?" Tubbo asked.

"I didn't remember until now," Phil said."We looked through these boxes once—after we came back as ghosts. I told them to share what things they find that helped with their memory."

"I probably didn't realize since I had no clue who she was—not even a name," Wilbur said.

"Wait, is Niki like part of that unfinished business thing?" Tommy asked.

"I—I think so," Wilbur said. "It gave that fuzzy brain feeling."

"Oh, Wilbur! Are you on some shit or somethin'?" Tommy said, jokingly.

Wilbur rolled his eyes, "Techno you know that feeling yeah?"

Techno hummed in an agreement, "Anyway, while you losers are talkin', I think I just found Phil's hat," he said, taking out a green and white bucket hat.

"Oh! Wilbur can meet Niki!" Tubbo exclaimed.

"He can, can't he," Tommy agreed.

"Wait, you can take me to her after the ritual?" Wilbur asked.

"Yeah, she's literally only a few blocks from here, and we may have already made plans for you two to meet sometime, but this is better!"

"Niki's busy at the bakery for Town Festival stuff, so she can't come here," Tubbo said.

"If she can't come here... I can go to her!" Wilbur exclaimed.

"Tubbo, I've been hearing Town Festival, what the fuck is it?" Tommy asked.

"It's a festival," Tubbo said. "Have you never been to a festival?"

"'course I 'ave! I meant when is it."

"It's on the 16th," Phil said. "We always attended the Town Festival, it was a lot of fun."

"We did, until we—ya know, died," Techno said.

"That's in two days," Tommy hummed. "My parents are leaving for a business trip tomorrow and won't be back for like 2 weeks. Can I just go with you?"

"'course, man," Tubbo said. "Ohhh, we can bring the ghosts as well."

"You can, you can," Wilbur said.

"That's if the ritual succeeds," Techno said.

"Aww, way to bring down the mood, bruv," Tommy said.

"Speaking of ritual, I think we should get going and tell Eret that we're game if he wants to do the thing tomorrow," Tubbo said.

"Yeah, we probably should," Tommy said.

"Bye guys!"

"Good luck cleaning that shit up!"  
.  
.  
.  
"Ah, fuck."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you again for all the support!
> 
> NEXT CHAPTER! The ritual
> 
> A little shameless plug lol. If you want more sbi stuff, you can go check out my other books if you haven't already:
> 
> Hogwarts AU (Dream SMP Members) - basically just collections of connected oneshots (not chronological) about smp member's time at Hogwarts. You don't really need to know the story of Harry Potter to read it—though there will be a few references to it. I just wanted magical world setting.
> 
> SBI Oneshots- sbi oneshots, that's it. They won't be connected unless said otherwise. Mostly AUs.
> 
> Thank you for reading! Comments and suggestions are appreciated.
> 
> -LuminaStarCrest


	23. Chapter 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING!! Mentions of Kidnapping

"Hi Eret!" Tubbo greeted as he spotted the psychic down the hill that their mansion was on—"And Fundy?" he added when he saw the orange haired male behind Eret.

"Yo! I decided to tag along to this little ritual of your's," Fundy smirked. "Never watched one before, so I thought why not."

"Okay then," Tubbo said. "The house is this way," he began leading the two. "Tommy's already there, telling the ghosts that we're on our way."

The trip was a quick and uneventful one—well, it was. "What the hell?" Fundy exclaimed. "The ghosts lived in this forest?"

"Uhh, yeah," Tubbo said as he pulled the map from his pocket. "Why?"

Fundy gave a nervous chuckle, shaking his head as he whispered something along the lines of 'there is no fucking way.'  
  
Fundy's eyes widen when he spotted the house. "No way," he said before bursting through the front door.

The scene that greeted him was an odd one. Tommy was half hanging off the stair railing, yelling profanities at three ghosts.

"Tommy, you fool!"

"Gottem."

Though the scene probably needed more context, Fundy couldn't help but not care as he stared at the floating figure wearing a familiar yellow sweater and a beanie. "W—Wilbur?"

Wilbur looked over to the door, "Uhh, hi?"

"How—what the fuck?" Fundy exclaimed, running a hand through his hair.

"Mind explaining, Fundy?" Eret said from behind the orange haired male.

"I—how are you a ghost?" Fundy asked. 

"I died?" 

"I know that! How?" Fundy asked. He watched as Wilbur's face shifted into confusion. "Do you even remember me?" He asked.

"I—" the ghost shook his head.

Fundy then took a deep breath. "My name's Fundy. Ring any bells?"

Wilbur stared at the younger boy, his mind trying it's best to recall the name.

_"Thanks for helping me."_

_"No problem, my name's Wilbur."  
_

_"Fundy."_

_"Come on WIlbur, I've shown all my friends Treasure Planet. You have to see it too!"_

_"Can I go with you to see Sally?"_

_"I don't see why not. Come on, she should be at the lake."_

_"Pretty sure I saw people go wandering around."  
_

_"I'm gonna patrol around the area then. See if there's people who got lost again."_

"You're...you're the kid who nearly got kidnapped for uhh, being a psychic, yeah?" Wilbur asked.

"Yes!"  
  
"Alright, what the fuck is happening?" Tommy asked.  
  
"I was a friend of Wilbur's when he was alive," Fundy said.   
  
"I think I met him when I saw a couple of guys ganging up on him, trying to get him to go in a van?" Wilbur said.

"Oh, so you're the Wilbur Fundy was talking about," Eret said. "Thank you. Thank you for helping him."  
  
Wilbur nodded, "I remember hanging out with him quite a lot, but it stopped after that one time I told him I was gonna patrol the area for people who might have gotten lost."

"That—that was the last tim that I heard from you," Fundy said. "Fuck."

"Hey, hey," Wilbur lowered himself to be the same height as Fundy. "I guess me living was just never meant to be."

"Still though," Fundy mumbled. "You guys were reported to be missing a couple of weeks later, and since the police had no leads, the case was closed."

"Wait, does that mean you're part of Wilbur's unfinished business?" Techno asked.

Fundy looked up, "Not sure. That's entirely up to Wilbur. Then again," he looked back at the brunet ghost, "You could have just forgotten me because I was somehow connected to your death?" he sighed. "I don't know man."

Wilbur hummed, "I—I don't remember either. Maybe?"

"Well, why don't we put that on hold, yeah?" Phil said. "Maybe remembering everything in one go isn't the best idea. You looked more confused than I've ever seen you," he told Wilbur. "We'll get there. No need to rush. We just have to piece things together."

Wilbur and Fundy nodded at Phil.  
  
"So," Tubbo decided to break the silence. "Do you know Phil and Techno?"

"Oh, no," Fundy shook his head. "Never really dared coming to the house with them in it. Heard they were scary."

"Pussy," Tommy smirked, earning himself a couple of glares.

"Anyway, we should probably get this ritual movin'?" Technoblade asked.

"Oh," Eret said, "Yes umm...I'm assuming the forest is your general bound area," he said. "We're gonna need your specialized bounds."

"This house is a specialized bound for all three of us," Phil said.

Eret hummed, "Do you have any other?" he asked. "We're gonna need a lot of binding energy to even do one. For this to work, using only one place isn't gonna cut it."

"We _do_ have other binds," WIlbur said.

"We could go to mine first," Techno proposed, "It's the closest from here."

"Lead the way then," Eret said.

The seven of them followed Technoblade to a small clearing.

"Uhhh, _why_ are we in a clearing?" Tubbo asked.

"Yeah, what's so special about a fuckin' clearing?" Tommy asked.

Wilbur chuckled, "This is where you continued your farming addiction isn't it?"

"For the last time, it isn't an addiction," Techno said, calmly, "It's a hobby."

"Uhuh."

"Eret, can we please start?" Phil asked. "I don't want these two going for each other's heads."

"Yes, of course," Eret said. "The item please."

"Oh, fuck. I left it at the house," Tubbo said, which earned a groan from the people around him

"I'll get it," Techno said.

.  
.  
.

"Are you gonna go...or?" Fundy asked. "You're just floating there... menacingly."

Technoblade let out a frustrated sigh, "I still can't access the portals," he said.

"Ah, shit, I forgot about that," Wilbur said.

Eret looked to the ghost's direction, "What do you mean? Are they not working?"

"For some reason we can't access the fucking Ghost Realm," Phil said. "Which means we can't use the damn portals. We don't know why, but it's been like this since yesterday or so."

Eret hummed, "I've never encountered a case like that," he said.

"Maybe it's just a fluke?" Fundy suggested. "Like, there's a dude that watches the portals right?"

"Yeah," Wilbur confirmed.

"Maybe they're just new or some shit," Fundy said.

"Hold up, do ghost have jobs in Ghost Realm or something?" Tubbo asked.

Phil hummed, "I guess? I mean we never really considered to 'work' as ghosts, so we don't really know how that works."

Wilbur sighed, "Either way, someone has to go back for that cape," he said.

"I'll get it," Tubbo said. "But Technoblade has to come with me or I'll get lost and shit."

"Get moving kid," Techno said, floating ahead of Tubbo.

After about five minutes, the two finally got back, cape in Tubbo's hand. The young brunet handed the item to Eret.

"Fundy, the slips?" Eret said.

"Oh, yeah," Fundy rummaged through his satchel. "Here ya go." He handed them a slip, and a marker.

Eret wrote something on the slip and attached it onto the cape, whispering something under his breath. The slip let out a light, before dying down and merging it self onto the fabric.

"There we go," Eret said. "Technoblade if you will," she handed the cape to the pink-haired male.

Techno held it in his hands and looked to Eret for instructions.

"Just hold it and concentrate on making the spiritual energy that binds you to this area visible to me." Eret then removed his sunglasses, eyes still closed. "I'll focus on redirecting them to the cape." He opened his eyes, revealing pure white, making him the only person that can see the now visible green balls of energy that floated around the area.

Eret kept mumbling something under their breath, as the mark that the slip left on the cape started glowing. Traces of green would linger around the mark as the spiritual energy merged itself to the cloak.

Eret then clapped his hands, making the cape shine brightly, resulting for everyone else to look away. "That should do it."

"God, that was tiring," Techno let out an exhausted sigh, handing the cape back to Tubbo.

"Well that's just the price that you have to pay," Eret said as he placed his sunglasses back to their former position.

"That looked so cool!" Tubbo exclaimed.

Eret chuckled, "Thank you, Tubbo."

"How was that cool? They were literally just mumbling like a madman," Fundy said.

"Thank you, Fundy," Eret said, "Nice to know that that would be what you'll be doing in the future huh?"

Fundy groaned.

"Who's place were going to next?" Tommy asked. "'cause frankly, those eyes were fuckin' weird as hell."

"Tommy, be nice," Phil reprimanded. "Anyway, I think mine's just a couple of minutes from here," he said before leading the group away from the used to be potato farm.

The seven of them trekked the forest and stopped upon a tall tree with a large platform at the top.

"How the hell did we miss this?" Tommy exclaimed, head tiled up, looking at the structure in awe.

"It's nothing much, really," Phil said. "It's not like there's a fuckin' tree house up there. It's just a plaform with rails so no one would fall of."

"Yeah, 'cause Philza's too old and boring to make such' childish' things," Wilbur snickered.

"But, hey he got them rails," Techno nodded. "We have children with us, so it's convenient that the thing's already childproofed."

"Yeah, I'd probably fall off."

"I am not a fuckin' child!"

"Shall we go up then?" Eret asked.

"Yeah, sure mate," Phil and the other ghosts began to float up, while the living ones climbed the ladder.

"This is so unfair," Fundy said as Wilbur floated beside him.

"Oh, would you rather be a ghost?" Wilbur tilted his head innocently, a sickeningly sweet smile etched on his mouth.

"Touché."

When they reached the top of tree, they were met by a wonderful sight of all the tree tops. Tommy let out a small 'woah' as he reached over the railing to try to catch a bird that flew by.

"Tommy!" Wilbur scolded.

"Are you tryin' to fall?" Techno said.

"Sorry," Tommy said before going back ti where Tubbo was standing.

"Bounds have attachments right?" Tubbo started. "Why do you like it here, Phil?" He asked. "I mean Techno's was obviously the farming thing."

Phil hummed, "I just like being up in the sky, I guess, so I hung around here a lot when these two were in school."

"Same procedure, Phil," Eret said as he grabbed another slip from Fundy and merging it with the hat.

Phil held the hat, and concentrated on making the spiritual energy visible for Eret. _Techno was right, this is fucking draining._ Phil thought as he felt the balls of energy suck a bit of his own energy, making their transparency more visible.

"And...we're done!" Eret clapped his hands, making the mark emit a blinding light, before it died down.

"Two down, one to go," Phil sighed handing Tommy the hat, which the boy immediately wore.

"Oh, I got Phil's hat!"

"Careful on the way down," Phil warned as he watched the humans climbed down the ladder.

"Wilbur's next," Tubbo said as he hopped down the final step of the ladder.

"Follow me!" The ghost sped down a path, the others trailing behind him.

"Are you taking us to the lake?" Phil asked.

"Yeah!"

"So we're finally gonna see this lake of your's huh?" Techno said.

"Wait, you guys don't know where Wilbur's lake is?" Fundy asked.

"We know, we just don't go there," Phil said. "He likes to go there to think, we're not gonna barge in on him."

Tommy hummed as the others talked, feeling uneasy to be on the same path again. He observed his surroundings, the corner of his eye catching a small portion of the cave's opening.

"Hey," he hears Technoblade call him, "You comin'?" He feels the ghost's presence behind him. "Why're you just standin' there?" Tommy didn't even realized that he was frozen.

"I—uh..." Tommy trailed off

Techno tilted his head at the direction Tommy was looking at, "Is—is that a...cave?" He started floating towards it.

"Tech—Techno!" Tommy followed the older, "I don't think you're gonna wanna go there, big man!"

"Bruh, it's just a cave, wha—" Techno stopped at the caves entrance.

_"Get them!"_

_"Fuck! I thought you said this was a secluded area!"_

_"Just hurry up and finish burying! We'll take care of those two!"_

_Running._

_Yelling._

_"Phil! Leave him alone!"_

_"Should have just left **us** alone, huh?"_

_Blood._

_Blood._

**_Blood._ **

"Techno?"

Technoblade blinked the images away. "We have to find Phil," he said, before floating away from the cave.

"Wha—Techno? What the hell man! You're not making sense here!" Tommy yelled as he tried to keep up with the ghost.

"Oh, there you two are," Tubbo said as the Techno and Tommy got into view. "Where were you? Wilbur already finished..."

Techno drowned out Tubbo's voice as his eyes landed on the lake.

_"Wilbur?"_

_Red Water._

_"Ah, fuck, not another one."_  
  
"Mate? You alright there?" Techno felt Phil land a hand on his shoulder.

"I—"

"Does this mean we can actually leave this blasted forest?" Wilbur asked, sparkles almost visible in the ghost's eyes.

"Well, why don't you try it out?" Eret chuckled.

_Guess it'll have to wait._ Technoblade thought, not wanting to ruin Wilbur's child-like excitement.

"How does it work anyway?" Tubbo asked.

"You just have someone hold your items, and you'll be able to go where they take the items to. That person would act like a medium between you and the item. You can probably last maybe ten minutes with just the item, but without a person, you'll most probably be transported back at the areas where we took energies from," Eret explained. 

"One thing though," Eret added. "A person can only hold one item at a time. A human cannot take in too much spiritual energy or they'll collapse."

"Wait, so we'll need another person to hold an item," Tubbo said.

Fundy hummed, "I don't mind carrying an item for a while," he said.

"Well, just know tat there's no fucking way I'm carrying a cape around with me," Tommy said.

"Oh, I'm not either," Fundy said.

"Does that mean I'm stuck with the cape?" Tubbo tilted his head.

"You could've gone with the crown," Tommy pointed out, "This is all on you Big T."

"Child's got a point, kid," Techno said.

Tubbo groaned, "Fine."

Fundy looked towards Wilbur, about to say something when Wilbur piped up, "I'll go with Tommy," he said, making Fundy sigh. 

He then looked at Phil with his nose scrunched up jokingly, "I get the old man, I guess."

"I'm not even that old!"

"Whatever you say," Fundy shrugged.

"Grandpa."

"Come back here you little shit!"

"I'm sorry!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys, new chapter drop! Thank you for all the support! I hoped you liked it. If there were some parts that were confusing, feel free to ask! 
> 
> Also, heads up, uploads are slowed down compared to back then, and would probably last a couple of chapters. Why? Well, you know how English isn't my first language? My brain decided to forget everything it's learned and basically said Bye-lingual. So, sorry for typos, misspelled words, and wrong grammar? 
> 
> Anyway! NEXT CHAPTER! Going around town! You guys know where Wilbur's planning to go *wink wonk*
> 
> Thank you for reading! Comments and suggestions are appreciated!
> 
> -LuminaStarCrest


	24. Chapter 23

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING! Mentions of Kidnapping, Blood and Murder. Not so graphic description of violence.

"So, are you guys going to the festival tomorrow?" Tubbo asked as he and the rest if the group walked back to the forest exit.

"Oh, yes," Eret said. "Fundy and I will be setting up a tent at the venue."

"Niki and Ranboo are doing their own thing with a pastry stand tomorrow," Fundy added.

"Are you guys going too?" Eret asked.

"Yeah!" Tubbo said. "This is actually Tommy's first festival here."

Tommy nodded, "And we're bringing the ghosts," he gave the three floating figures a look, "I guess."

WIlbur gave him a look back, "The fuck's that supposed to mean?"

"What are you guys even gonna do there?" Tommy asked.

"Can't we just want to go and experience the atmosphere that the venue gives?" Phil asked.

"We can always freak people out," Technoblade said.

"Or they can like, help you guys win stuff," Fundy said. "You know, rig the game."

"Fair point," Tommy shrugged his shoulders.

They reached the edge of the forest. "Well, who wants to go first?" Eret asked.

"I'll go," Phil said, gesturing for Fundy to start walking out of the forest. When he did, Phil followed and they managed to get a few steps away from the forest.

"It works!" Wilbur cheered. "C'mon! I can't wait to see the fuckin' town. I hate this shit forest!" He flipped the trees off as he followed Tommy who was regretting ever agreeing to take Wilbur. 

"Ya know, I think I'm good here," Techno said.  
  
"Come on now mate," Phil started. "Aren't you tired of seeing the forest over and over?"

"I mean it has less people," Techno answered.

"You're a ghost!" Tommy exclaimed, "'s not like people are gonna see you."

Techno rolled his eyes before following Tubbo out the forest. 

"Well," Eret started, "I've done what is needed, I'll be back in my tent if you need me," he said.

"Bye Eret. Thanks for the help," Tubbo said, while the others waved goodbye.  
  
"Where are we gonna go then?" Fundy asked Phil.

Phil hummed, "I don't know," he started. "What about you two?" 

"Me and Tommy already have a place in mind," Wilbur said. "We'll see you later!" He urged the younger boy to start walking.

"Well?" Phil asked. Techno shrugged his shoulders, while Tubbo shook his head.

"Why don't we just go off on our own then?" Fundy asked. 

"Yeah, alright," Phil said. "Don't go causing trouble alright," he told Techno and Tubbo. 

"Where are we going to go?" Phil asked as he floated next to a walking Fundy.

Fundy hummed, "Not sure, but there's a fishing pond nearby. Old people like fishing don't they?"

Phil groaned.

"Did everyone just...forget why we wanted to be able to leave the forest in the first place?" Technoblade asked.

"Seem so," Tubbo said as he started walking, making Techno follow him. "Then again, it's been a few days since the incident, and the Reapers haven't gone after me or Tommy after that one time."  
  
"That's because of your compass necklace," Techno answered.

Tubbo looked down at the necklace, "Do you want me to take it off? Just so we know if it was actually us that they were after and not a ghost?"  
  
Techno shook his head, "Nah, too risky."

Tubbo hummed as the two of them continued their walk. "You said that maybe a ghost had attached itself to us? How does that work?"

"I'm not really sure, but there are ghosts that are classified as Lost Souls," Techno started. "From what I read, they're called as such because they don't have a bound place, which allows them to wander."

"I thought ghosts are _supposed_ to have a bound place before they're like dropped off here," Tubbo furrowed his eyebrows.

"That's what I don't understand either," Techno sighed. "The book says that a reasoning for this is because the soul supposedly didn't die."

"So basically Lost Souls are souls that didn't die but are like not alive anymore, and because they didn't actually die, they don't have bound areas so they can go wherever?" Tubbo asked.

"Basically."

"Wha—how?" Tubbo exclaimed, making a few people look at him, "How does someone be not alive when they didn't die in the first place?" He asked in a softer voice.

"Who knows. Ghost stuff has always been confusing. I've been dead for three years and I still don't get it," Techno answered. "Just make sure to die properly or somethin' so you don't end up as one."

"Oh wow, what a great advice. I'll make sure to plan my death then. Maybe decorate it or something."

***

"It's just around here," Tommy told Wilbur as he took a left at a familiar intersection. The two arrived in front of the bakery.

WIlbur peaked through the glass window, and there he saw the blond girl at the counter, serving customers baked goods with a smile on her face. "That's her," he said in a soft voice, "It's really her!"

"Oh," Tommy said when he spotted Ranboo looking at them with a tilted head, silently questioning them. "Looks like we're going in big man," he said.

"Wait, I'm not ready," Wilbur said.

"Stop being a pussy, Wilbur," Tommy said attempting to grab the brunet's wrist. He let out a groan, "I keep forgetting that you're not 'tangible'," he said, making air quotes.

Tommy pushed the door open, the sounds of the chimes alerting the people inside. Niki turned around to greet them.

"Oh, hello Tommy, and," she looked over to Wilbur who was giving her a small wave. "...Wilbur? Wha—"

"So," Tommy started. "You know how me and Tubbo were supposed to bring you to meet someone. We just decided to bring him to you instead!" He gave a nervous laugh.

"Hi," Wilbur greeted.

"I—what—how?" Niki asked.

Ranboo looked around the shop and saw people staring. I mean if the person serving you food is talking to air, you'd probably be worried. "Hey!" Ranboo interrupted. "Why don't you two continue catching up in the break room," he said pushing Niki slightly towards the door.

"But what about the shop?" She asked.

"Tommy will help," Ranboo decided.

"Wait, wha—" Tommy was cut off by Ranboo throwing an apron to his face.

Niki walked into the break room and sat down on the chair by the table, before letting out an unsure laugh. "Wilbur...is it really you?"

Wilbur gave the girl a soft smile and a nod.

"But how?"

"I—I don't really know," Wilbur said. "I heard you guys work with ghosts so I'm guessing I don't have to explain all that right?" Niki nodded. "So you know what it means when a ghost forgets a person right?"  
  
"It's either they have something to do with your death or their part of your unfinished business," Niki stated. "Hold on...am _I_ part of your unfinished business? Because I'm fairly sure I have nothing to do with your death, this is the first time I've seen you for years."

Wilbur nodded, "I think so," he chuckled. "I've been hit with a whiplash of memories when I saw you in person...though I'm still not sure _what_ it is that I have to do." 

Niki hummed, "Do you know what type of unfinished business you have?"  
  
"There are types" Wilbur exclaimed.

"Wait, you didn't know that?"

"Well it isn't like there's a school for this shit in the Ghost Realm!"  
  
"How about I run you through them, yeah?" Niki said. "Umm, there's Regret. It's when you die and there's still something that you still need to finish. Revenge, a vengeful spirit cannot rest peacefully, so they have to come to terms with whatever they want to get revenge on," Niki listed.

"Finally, there's the Unwilling, there's a lot of them. To put simply, they resist passing on. They could be done with their unfinished business, but they just don't want to go," Niki explain. "Most of them don't want to go because they don't want to know what's at the afterlife."

Wilbur hums with his eyes closed, trying to think, "I'm not sure. I don't even know if I remember everything," he said. "There are parts that are still a bit blurry."

"Well, why don't you tell me what you remember," Niki said. "I'll help fill in some details."

"Are you sure? I think this'll take too long," Wilbur said.

"Wilbur," Niki smiled at him. "It's alright. I _want_ to help you," she said.

Wilbur stared at her before letting out a sigh, "Alright."

***

A fourteen year old Wilbur stared out of the window from his and Techno's bedroom on the second floor of the house. Outside, Phil was talking to another man—probably the guy who was supposedly buying a ton of ingredients for a cake. Behind him was a blonde girl—she looked around two years younger than him—observing her surroundings. She pulled on the man's shirt, making him look down. Wilbur was too far away to hear what they were saying, but based on the way the girl wandered off, maybe she was asking permission to wander. 

"Hey Techno," Wilbur looked back to his older twin who was lying down on a bed opposite to his, "Do you want to go outside? I think Phil's customer's daughter could y=use some company."

Techno hummed, "No."

Wilbur rolled his eyes and shook his head, "Suit yourself," he said before hopping off his bed and making his way outside. 

He looked around the area and found the girl going around the cornfield. "Hello!" Wilbur greeted loudly, making the girl jump.

"Oh, hi," she waved meekly at the brunet. 

Wilbur made his way over to her and stretched out a hand, "My name is Wilbur," he said.

The girl smiled and shook his hand, "I'm Niki," she said.

"Hello, Niki, would you like me to tour you around the farm?" Wilbur asked.

"I'd love that," Niki laughed.

Ever since their first interaction, they two immediately became friends. Apparently Niki's family owned a shop that supplied bakeries from the city, with ingredients. Niki always came with her father to go to Phil's family farm whenever they had to discuss arrangements, allowing her to visit and play loads with Wilbur. This went on for months, and eventually the two got bored with just playing around the farm.

"Do you think you can get your dad to let you explore around the area with me?" Wilbur asked as the two of them laid around on the hay, watching the clouds pass.

Niki hummed, "I could try asking him," she said standing up and walking towards the house.

Wilbur waited for a few minutes, and soon enough Niki was bursting through the doors. "He said we can go as long as I'm back before 5 pm."

"Great!" Wilbur sat up, "Let's go."

The two of them ran around the area, waving at the neighbors—if you'd call them neighbors, they lived literally a few hours away—as they passed them inside their truck.   
  
"Hey, Niki! Look at this," Wilbur called the girl over. "I call it Pond-Tree!" He presented the small island in the middle of the pond which had a tree on it. 

"Oh wow, how do we get there?" She asked Wilbur.

"Not sure," Wilbur tilted his head, thinking. "Maybe I can get wooden planks at home and lay them to reach the island."

"Yeah, we should try that."

So the next time, they did just that. The two hang around the Pond-Tree a lot. This one time in particular, Wilbur brought his guitar—a gift from Phil from his birthday, last year. He was strumming randomly, while Niki was reading a book.

Niki sighed, "I wonder what would living in a mansion feel like," she asked. 

Wilbur hummed, "Why do you ask?"

"It's just, it looks real cool," Niki said. "They have their own ballrooms!" She stood up. "Oh how I've always wanted to dance in a ballroom," she said as she waltzed around the base that they made out of the island.

"Maybe when we're older, we can go book a whole ballroom," Wilbur laughed. "Then we could dance."

"You'd dance with me?" Niki asked, her eyes sparkling with joy.

"Yeah," Wilbur laughed. "'course I would. I promise."

They lived to see that day come eventually, but it seems that finding a ballroom to dance in wasn't gonna be the only challenge.

"So you guys are leaving tomorrow?" Niki asked, watching Wilbur strum his guitar.

"...Yeah," A now sixteen year old Wilbur stopped strumming. Phil's parents passed a couple of months ago and all the legal stuff that comes with selling the house and farm was finally taken care off. "Phil said he wanted us to experience the city life, so he got a house there."

"Oh," Niki said. 

"Hey, hey," Wilbur said crawling closer to the girl, and hugging the girl who was now sniffling. "You're acting as if you're never seeing me again," he said.

"But you're going away and—and what if we never see each other again?"

"We'll see each other again," Wilbur reassured. 

"You promise?"

"Yeah."

***

"Well, I guess _this_ is that last promise huh?" Niki smiled. 

"Yeah," Wilbur said. "I promised, didn't I? Then again, I only remembered that promise moments ago," he gave a weak chuckle. "And this isn't how I pictured our reunion."

"I know," Niki laughed. "...Do you think that...the ballroom dance thing is your unfinished business?"

"I mean, it could be...I don't really—I don't think it could be anything else," Wilbur said.

"Well do I have news for you WIlbur," Niki said. "Guess who lives in a mansion."

"Oh yeah! You live at that Mansion on top of that hill now huh?" Wilbur said.

"Uhuh, so that means we can finally have that dance!" Niki said. 

"It'll probably have to wait though," Wilbur started. "I mean, we still have a lot to catch up on. wouldn't want me to suddenly go away, now would you?"

"Of course not," Niki said.

"It's nice to see you again, Wil."

***

Meanwhile, Phil and Fundy were sat on the dock of a fishing pond. There weren't a lot of people, but there were people still. One guy in particular was was repeating a punchline to a joke over and over again—"But her aim is getting better!"—while a couple rowed away.

"I told you, this is _the_ place for you," Fundy chuckled as he watched the scene.

"I am _not_ that old," Phil defended. "And even if I was, I bet I'd be funnier than that guy."

"Whatever you say, old man," Fundy shrugged his shoulders.

"Why are we even here? It's not like I can hold a rod without people noticing," Phil said.

Fundy stared at him for a moment, "Fair point. Guess you're gonna have to watch me fish."

Phil sighed, "You caught something," he stated as he watched Fundy reel the fish in.   
  
"You think I don't know that?" Fundy asked as he struggled. 

Phil sighed at the sad scene in front of him and made his hands tangible, helping the younger to pull the rod, and catch the fish in a bucket.

"Thank you," Fundy said. "This is so awkward," he laughed. "I'm talking to the ghost father of my my friend, who is _also_ a ghost."

"That reminds me," Phil started, "How do you know Wilbur?"

Fundy was silent for a moment, "It was a couple years ago," he started, "I was walking home from school when a van pulled up and tried to kidnap me. Almost succeeded, good thing Wilbur was around and managed to yank me away from them." 

"It's because of your psychic abilities, yeah?"

"Uhuh."

Phil hummed, "Wilbur also said that maybe you were involved in his death..."

"Oh, I don't really know how I'm involved to be honest," Fundy said. "The last time I interacted with Wilbur when he was alive—Alivebur," Fundy laughed—"was when we were back at the lake in the forest, playing around with Sally, Wilbur's salmon."

"Yeah, I remember Sally," Phil said with a sigh. "He got her when he was seventeen and said he wanted to marry her. He was...an odd child."

"Yeah, I'd say so too," Fundy commented. "Anyway, so we were hanging around right? But like it was time for me to help with the psychic stuff, so I had to go home. He was supposed to take me back to the forest entrance, but I told him I thought I saw people walking around. He told me to go ahead, and he would check on them, just in case they were lost or something."  
  
"And that was the last of it?" Phil asked.

"That was the last of it."

Phil hummed as he thought about it. Apart from the initial memory whiplash that he got when he saw Wilbur and Techno as ghosts when they first arrived back in the world of the living, he hadn't gotten any other memories. Well, apart from the same ones that Techno had. _Red water, blood, machete_ , _cave, and lake._ He thought. 

"Do you think..." Phil started, "Wilbur died to those people?"

"Wha—like...they killed him?" Fundy asked, stunned with what Phil had said.

"Yeah, as much as I don't want to think about it, it makes sense," Phil said. "The last anyone saw him alive was when he went to follow those people. Techno and I..."

_"Phil! Wilbur_ — _he_ — _the lake_ —"

"...saw Wilbur bleeding his head out in the lake..." Phil trailed off. _That explains the red water, the lake!_ He looked Fundy in the eye.

"This was definitely some sort of murder case." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eyyy! New chapter is up! I hope you guys liked this part. 
> 
> Again, the chapters are coming out a bit slow because the following parts are more plot based so it's a bit harder to write compared to the first few chapters of this story—this one in particular was extremely difficult to write, mostly because I did not expect it to be this long. I have other works that I update while this one is on cool down, so if you'd like to check them out, please do! Thank you for understanding <3
> 
> Anyway, NEXT CHAPTER! The Town Festival!
> 
> Thank you for reading! Comments and suggestions are appreciated!
> 
> -LuminaStarCrest


	25. Chapter 24

If you were to ask Tommy how he felt after helping with the bakery yesterday, he would tell you that it's fuckin' tiring. So much so, he woke up that Sunday morning, ate breakfast, laid around on his bed, eventually falling asleep again. He didn't even manage to eat lunch since no one was around to wake him up—his parents were off on a business trip for a couple of days.

So when he woke up with his phone ringing and vibrating, he was confused. Tommy groaned as he grabbed it, the bright '5:30 pm' staring him in the face. _Why do I have an alarm set for 5:30?_ He thought as he turned it off, glancing at the date.

It was the 16th. Why does he feel he's forgetting something.

"Shit!" He shot up from his bed. "The festival is in thirty minutes."

Tommy grabbed his clothes and a towel before rushing to the bathroom, taking a quick shower. When he changed his clothes, he felt as if he was forgetting something, but time was ticking so he didn't think much of it. 

He grabbed his phone, wallet, keys, and Wilbur's sweater before running out of the house. Locking the door behind him, he headed to the forest.

"There you are!" Tubbo exclaimed from the edge of the forest where he and Ranboo were waiting with the ghosts. "We thought you forgot about the festival and was going to be late or something."

"Pfff, as if," Tommy rolled his eyes, chuckling nervously.

"Well, let's go," Phil said, "we have, like ten minutes to get to the town square."

"Hey, Tommy, can we switch items," Tubbo said.

"What? No way," Tommy said.

"C'mon, Ranboo won't trade with me," Tubbo said.

Tommy smirked, "Fine, I'll switch with you," he raised a finger to keep Tubbo from speaking, "'cause I'm a better friend that Ranboo here." Ranboo only rolled his eyes with a smile.

"Okay," Tubbo said with a shrug. "Hey if you getting all clingy is what it takes, I don't mind."

And so they switched. Tubbo was now wearing the yellow sweater, while Tommy had the cape loosely on his shoulders.

"Can we get a move on, now?" Techno asked.

"Yeah, we're gonna miss the speech," Phil said.

"Oh c'mon Phil, no one listens to speeches," Wilbur said as he followed Tubbo who began to walk.

"I do," Ranboo said, following the other's lead.

"That's 'cause you're a nerd," Techno said.

When they arrived at the festival, the place was—understandably—packed with people. It seems as if they _did_ in fact missed the speech as the people were starting to move around, leaving the front of the podium.

"Alright, where to first?" Tubbo asked.

"Well, where do you want to go, Tommy?" Ranboo asked. "This _is_ your first Town Festival."

"I don't know," Tommy said. "Get food or something? I'm hungry."

"The food booths are usually in the middle," Wilbur said.

So to the middle they went. Tommy got himself corn dogs while Ranboo and Tubbo got pretzels. Tommy frowned at the two who were gushing about how tasty the pretzel was.

"Is it really _that_ good?" Tommy asked.

"It's about average, really," Ranboo said.

"We're just doing this to annoy you," Tubbo said.

"Why?" Tommy asked, his voice going up.

"You were twenty minutes late to our agreed time, so I say fair," Techno said.

Tommy rolled his eyes, "Let's go play games or something," he said.

"There's a ring toss game over there," Phil pointed out.

The three teenagers payed for three rings each and threw them, trying to land one and win something. When they didn't, they bought more rings and so the process.

"This is rigged," Tubbo said as he threw his tenth ring before he perked up. "Hey, hey Wilbur," he whispered, catching the older boy's attention. "Let's scam them," Tubbo said summoning a wide grin on Wilbur's face.

"Alright, I'm gonna throw my ring now," Tubbo announced, capturing the attention of the others.

They watched as he pretended to throw the ring and Wilbur moved the ring forward, making it look like it went and got in a marker.

"Yes! I win old man!" Tubbo yelled at the stand owner making the man grunt and hand him a bee plush.

The three of them left the stand, "You know what, that didn't seem like a bad idea," Ranboo said.

"Yeah, we should go scam these bitches," Tommy grinned.

And so scam they did. They managed to convince both Techno and Phil to play along. In the end, they won a bunch of stuff—mostly stuffed toys—but they were being suspiciously too good at the games that the stand owners won't allow them to play anymore.

"Give them a minute," Wilbur said, "They'll forget that they banned you, then we can go back."  
  
"Sounds like a plan," Tubbo smiled, "What are we supposed to do now?"  
  
"There's a karaoke booth there," Ranboo said.

"No, no, I am _not_ singing," Tommy said as he was dragged off by his friends towards said booth.

When they got there, they were lead to a little room with a karaoke machined. Their little singing session started with Tubbo taking the mic. 

"YOU SPIN ME RIGHT ROUND BABY RIGHT ROUND!"

The Ranboo had a go.

"Godzilla took a bite out of Optimus Prime."

Then the two of them were looking at Tommy handing him the mic.

"C'mon," Ranboo said, poking Tommy with the mic.

"You know you want to sing," Tubbo said. "I even have the perfect song," he said as he messed with the buttons of the machine.

Tommy watched as the lyrics appeared on the screen, music rolling in. He rolled his eyes before grabbing the mic from Ranboo.

"I know I'm not the only one!"

"Yeah!!" The two cheered.

Phil was laughing as they sung, not caring if their voice cracked trying to reach high notes. Techno was watching them with a bored, yet amused expression. Meanwhile Wilbur watched as the three teens sung their heart out to the songs that was available in the machine, before stepping in, "These songs are good and all, but let me have a go." 

"My keyboard's like my heart," Wilbur started.

"It shines in RGB and it's full of blood," Tommy joined in, making WIlbur smile.

"Did you memorize the song?" He asked.

"No," Tommy said instantly, "I just heard you singing it."

"You listen when I sing?"  
  
"Just sing, will you?"

Their little bickering resulted into them doing a duet of "Internet Ruined Me." After singing, the others cheered, Techno's being the least enthusiastic.

"You know, Wilbur isn't the only one who made a song," Phil said.

Ranboo looked up at him, "What do you mean?"

"I mean, a certain someone made a parody once when he was younger," Phil said as he looked at Techno who's face may seem calm, but his eyes were begging—maybe they were threatening, but why would Phil be scared of Techno—him to shut up.

" _The_ Technoblade himself wrote a parody?" Tubbo asked.

"Yeah, I'm not singing," Techno said.

"Technoblade! Technoblade!" Wilbur began to chant.

"Technoblade!" The others joined in.

"I hate you guys so much." Techno grabbed the mic from Wilbur before taking in a deep breath. "Gettin' bored..."

The night went on like so until they were hungry again. "Why are you guys always so hungry?" Wilbur asked.

"Maybe it's our working digestive system," Ranboo said. "So we have to go."

"Also, my throat hurts," Tubbo added.

"That's what you get for yelling instead of actually singing," Phil said.

"I've never felt pain," Tommy said.

"So you say," Techno rolled his eyes at the blond.

***

"Tubbo, I'm telling you these candy apples are the good shit," Tommy said, turning around.

"Yeah, and you're gonna make yourself sick," Tubbo said as he watched the blond maul the treat.

"No, I'm not," Tommy said, "I'm a big man. I don't get sick."

"Well, that's fucked up logic," Technoblade commented.

"Oh, hey, where's Ranboo and Phil?" Tommy asked looking for the taller boy.

"Ranboo said he was gonna check on Niki's pastry stand and get food there, and Phil well, came along," Wilbur said. "'s not like he can do much about it, can he?"

"Yeah, well I'm gonna go feed myself more of these," Tommy said as he threw away the stick in a bin near the candy apple stand.

"Okay. Wilbur and I are gonna scam more game stands," Tubbo said. "If you get sick by the end of all this, I am not gonna carry your sorry arse home," he added, which only made Tommy roll his eyes.

After Tubbo and Wilbur have left, Tommy went and bought another candy apple. Technoblade sighed, "How about we go somewhere else? Ya know, far from the stand?"

"It's really good though," Tommy insisted as he followed Techno's instructions and walked away from the stand.

Techno hummed, "I would agree if I can actually taste it."

"Oh yeah," Tommy laughed. "I keep forgetting that you're ghosts."

"How do you even—"

Tommy furrowed his eyebrows at the sudden pause and looked up at the floating man, "How do I what?"

"Tommy, I think you should run," Techno said, eyes glaring at something at a distance.

"Why do I have to—" he followed the older one's gaze and his eyes widen. "Shit," he said as he backed away from his spot, trying to get lost in the crowd of people, before sprinting away when he saw the same brown hooded figures from back then, flying towards him.

"Shit, shit, fuck," Tommy cursed as he ran, bumping into people as he did.

Techno looked back and saw that the hooded figures were closer. "I thought you had some sort of magical thing that keeps them away from you?" He asked as he kept up with Tommy.

"I do!" Tommy yelled his hand reaching for his neck. "I don't know why they—oh." He looked down and saw the necklace missing. "Fuck. That was what I was forgetting."

Technoblade eyed the figures closing in, as much as he wanted to help Tommy, he couldn't do much because his only source of energy was the cape. "Run to the psychic tent or the bakery stand, whichever's closer," he said.

Tommy made a right, going towards the bakery, hopefully Niki could do that bright light trick she did last time.

Niki's was settled far back in the rows of stands, and was near the clearing where not much people gathered.

"I'm gonna go ahead and call for them, you keep up that pace so that I wouldn't be out of range," Technoblade instructed.

Tommy nodded and watched as Techno floated forward. He looked back and clicked his tongue when he saw that the hooded figures were much closer.

Facing forward, he saw Niki talking to Technoblade, while Ranboo, Phil, Tubbo and Wilbur were gathered around the stand.

Niki was pulling a slip from her pocket when Tommy tripped. _Fuck._

He could hear low laughs as he felt someone grab his arm, pulling him up—Techno's cape unclasping and falling down on the ground. The hooded figures began surrounding him, and Tommy could only watch as terrified looks took over his friends face. Before everything in his vision disappeared, he could make out their yelling which rang through his ears.

"TOMMY!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, that happened. I mean we all knew that the festival wasn't gonna end well, lol. I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter. P.s. I don't know how festivals work hahaha, so I'm sorry if the way it worked here is off.
> 
> Also, hey, we are officially half way through the story! Thank you for all the support that you have given this fic. I did not expect it to last this long. I hope you guys stick 'til the end!
> 
> Anyway, NEXT CHAPTER! Tommy is captured and taken to Ghost Court! Two new familiar characters will be appearing.
> 
> -LuminaStarCrest

**Author's Note:**

> P.S. English is not my first language, and the one I learned is American English, so yeahhh. Sorry for any grammatical and/or spelling errors.
> 
> P.P.S. This is my first MCYT content, so I'm sorry if the characters seem OOC. I've only started watching them for a while. So if there are tips that you wanna share on how their characters can be portraid better, the comment section is the way to go.
> 
> Thank you for reading! Comments and suggestions are appreciated.
> 
> -LuminaStarCrest


End file.
